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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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"O'er the wave, through long watery alleys of trees, 
Under thick-hanging mosses soft-swung by the breeze." 
-Frontispiece. —Page 140. 



Holiday Idlesse, 



And Other Poems. 



By JAMES H. WEST. 



NEW EDITION, ENLARGED AND ILLUSTRATED 



' 



! 13 1832, 

BOSTON : 
A. WILLIAMS & CO., Publishers, 

@Ib Comer bookstore. 
1882. 



T5^ I 5« 



Copyright, 1882, 
By JAMES H. WEST. 



f 



DEDICATION. 



c ^o her whose sympathetic heart 
Hath been my stay ; 

Whose gentle hand hath guided me 
In all my way ; 

Whose teachings in my childhood's hour.: 
Were love alone ; 

Whose arms of counsel, now in youth, 
Are round me thrown ; 

To her whose bright example is 
My guiding star; 

Whose love and faith are firmer than 
The hills afar; 

Whose presence hovers o'er me like 
Some holy dove ; 

To her these little songs -are given, 
In grateful love. 



NOTE TO THE EDITION OF 1880. 

[All of the verses here printed, with one or two excep- 
tions, have before been in type. Some of them have been 
copied extensively, — at times coming back to me from far 
wanderings. They have oftentimes made me warm friends, 
and this at least I have, as a reward for the hours devoted 
to them. They all have been written at random moments, 
in the intervals of busy youthful years. I ask not, however, 
on this account, favor for them : they are printed for what 
they are worth. Their reception in the past leads me to be- 
lieve them not unworthy their present form.] 



NOTE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. 

The very cordial reception extended to the first edition of 
these poems, published nearly two years ago, has led to this 
second issue, the present edition being much enlarged. 

The current volume contains almost all of the shorter poems 
for which the author desires to be held responsible. Such 
others of his verses as are fugitives in the land, wandering 
about in the columns of local newspapers, nameless and un- 
accredited, he hardly regrets to disown : although it is true 
that whenever he meets them, altered in dress very often, and 
changed in feature still as his children he would fain take 
them in his arms. 

It may be only just to himself to say that many of the pieces 
here printed were written when the author was not twenty 
years old, the remainder having appeared during the four or 
five years since intervening. 

Next preceding the Table of Contents are printed five lines, 
— "The Poet's Forethought," — which were prefixed to the vol- 
ume of 1880. Following the Epilogue, " Finished," at the close 
of the present edition, will be found ten companion lines, — 
"The Poet's Afterthought," — inspired by the warmth of the 
reception accorded to the first volume, and first printed with 
"Kalligo," on the original publication of that poem in 1881. 

To his friends, near and far, the author would extend his 
cordial greeting, and his thanks for their continued kindly en- 
couragements. And for himself, in publishing this little volume 
anew, he desires no happier return than the fuller fruition of his 
aspiration as contained in the closing lines of his Proem and 
of his Epilogue. 

J. H. W. 

College Hill, Mass., 1882. 



LINES. 

THE POET'S FORETHOUGHT. 

I took within my hand 

The clay and potter's wheel : 
Who knows ? ... the model I have planned 
To marble may anneal, — 
Or crumble into sand. 



►<- 



CONTENTS. 



Dedication, iii 

Note to the Edition of 1880, iv 

Note to the Present Edition, v 

Lines, — "The Poet's Forethought," . . vi 

Prelude. Sonnet, ...... x 

Proem, ....... xi 

Holiday Idlesse, . . . . . -13 

Man: A Phantasy? 16 

Sunset — from College Hill, . . . -19 
"Whither, ye Stately Ships!" ... 23 

"A Breath from the Fields," . . .26 

Sweetest Songs are never Sung, . . 28 

Beacon-Lights. Sonnet, . . . . . 31 

The Yachtsman's Pennant, ... 32 

Pentecost, ....... 33 

Concord River, . . . . . . 37 

The murmuring City and the answering Ocean, 41 
"A Dear little Bird," .... 43 

My Dragon-Fly, ...... 44 

A Face, and a Race, .... 48 

College Hill — after long Absence, . . 49 

Old Timothy John,— "Potatoes," . . 52 

"I feel that I Know Her," . . . .57 

(vii) 



I 



J 


n 


j 


U 


1 


L 1 


V 


i 4 




Clcw^/i. 


PAGE. 






Little Boy Harry, ..... 


. 60 






To my Friends across the Mystic, . 


62 






Medford. Bells, 


. 64 






"To-day the Winds of March are Wild," 


66 






Daffodils — Inscribed to T. W. L., 


. 67 






The Bells of Como, .... 


72 






Mother and Son, ..... 


. 96 






The Loved Ones who have Left us, 


106 






An Answer, ...... 


112 






Gone, ...... 


116 






A Cane from Gethsemane, . 


. 118 






Kalligo, ...... 


123 






Meteors, ...... 


• i43 






Sweet-Brier Roses, .... 


i45 






Moonlight on College Hill, . 


. 150 






Body and Spirit, .... 


iS4 






Mystic River, ..... 


• 156 






Bodily Weariness, .... 


160 






The Violet, 


162 






"I dreamed last Night I was a Boy," 


165 






Rhobe, ....... 


169 






Proem. "The Key-note of the Soul," 


169 






Part First, . . 


170 






Song. "When young Hearts love," 


171 






Interlude. "Ministering Spirits," 


• 179 






Part Second, . 


186 






Intermediate Note, .... 


• 194 






Part Third, 


196 




J 


• 




r 


% 


ir 


i 


L 



-►■« 



Contents. 

PAGE. 

Three Fragments from an unfinished Allegory, 220 

I. Walnut Hill, 220 

II. Heart of Youth, .... 222 

III. "By Passion Ballasted," . . 225 
The Schoolmaster's Dream, . . . .231 
Wentworth Brooks Robbins. In Memoriam, 235 
"If I were a Stream on a Mountain," . . 239 
Death of my Friend, .... 241 
"I fain would Bow before the Lord," . . 242 
Words and Deeds, ..... 244 
The Sorrowing Wind, ...... 244 

Drifting, 245 

Early Fragment — 1870, .... 248 

Epilogue — "Finished." Sonnet, . . 249 

Lines, — "The Poet's Afterthought," . . 250 

JVotes, ...... . 251 

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

"O'er the wave, through long watery alleys of trees, 
Under thick-hanging mosses soft-swung by the breeze." 
— Frontispiece. 

"Full many a placid hour 

Beside thy edge I've strayed, 
And many a sylvan bower 
Has Fancy there displayed." 

—Page 38. 

"The hut, like the owner, was tottering fast." 

— Page 126. 



PRELUDE. 



O friends of mine ! whose kindly words 

have led 
Unto the gathering of these wayside 

flowers, — 
These wilding blossoms of my happier 

hours ! 

As one who, walking in a garden bed, 
Turns wearily from poppies fiery red, 
Wanders from where the flaming peony 

towers, 
Passes the odorous pinks, the kalmia 

bowers, 
And through the gateway strolls, that 

he may tread 
The quiet forest-path, and feel the kiss 
Of cooling breezes, and behold alone 
The modest violet's blue, and clover 

mild, — 
So you, ye say, would wander! But the 

bliss 

The bliss ye seek! Dreaming fair seed 

were sown, 
What if ye here find weeds, — weeds 

only, — tangled, wild ! 



PROEM. 

O, strange are the songs that the wild birds sing, 
And weird the refrain when the zephyrs of Spring 

First rustle through branches new burdened with 
green ; 
O, quaint is the forest's dim silence and shade, 
And wild the loud Ocean's entombed cannonade 

'Neath perilous cliffs and mad gorges between : 

But stranger and quainter, more weird and more 

wild, 
Are the Songs which the listening Bards have be- 
guiled, 
In mystical cadences sung in their ear ! 
For them chant the birds a more marvelous strain, 
For them beats the tempest a wilder refrain, 
Than others than they are enabled to hear ! 

Thus down through the ages come mystical rhymes, 

Which Minstrels have rung on their harps betimes, 

Enchanting men's lives with their symphonies 

sweet ; 

(xi) 



4* 



Proem. 



Thus down through the Future shall Troubadours 

sing, 
And sweet Serenaders their melodies bring, 
Till earth be with marvelous anthems replete. 



Perchance the weird Minstrel may soon be forgot ; 
His birth and his grave be remembered not, 

Nor aught but his Muse keep his memory green : 
But vernal forever, till centuries die, 
Shall ring out his Songs to the verberant sky, 

Like musical chimes from a belfry unseen ! 

Nor mine may it be to attain to a niche 
In temples whose walls the more favored en- 
rich, — 
Whose songs, though as fervent, are feeble to 
theirs : 
But happy indeed were my heart and my pen, 
Perchance if some brief benediction to men 
My verse might contain in its lines unawares ! 



*H-4* 



Holiday Idlesse, 

AND OTHER POEMS. 

HOLIDAY IDLESSE. 

College Hill, Mid-Summer, 1879. 

I sit beside my window here, 

And dream away the day. 
The air is calm, the sky is clear, — 

And yonder, down the Bay, 

Along the silvery rim of light 
That marks the Ocean's edge, 

Fair far-off slanting wings of white 
Sail slow beyond the ledge; — 
(13) 



14 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

Beyond the ledge of towering rocks 
That mark the heights of Lynn ; — 

Beyond to where the Equinox 
Shall howl with awful din. 

O stay at home, ye stately ships ! 

O stay at home as I ! 
Nor sail to meet but sure eclipse 

Beneath an angry sky ! 

The wandering thought, the impatient heart, 

The discontented soul, 
At best can know of life but part, 

And not the rounded whole. 

But ah! ye cannot stay! — e'en now 

Your sails are seaward set : 
E'en now above your burdened bow 

The fluttering sea-gulls fret. 

And soon I too must hence away, 

To skirt uncharted shores ! 
Already in my ears the spray 

Of ocean conflict roars. 



^ — i 

Holiday Idlesse. 15 

'T is well ! 't is well, ye stately ships ! 

Ye were not made for calm ! 
Your keels were laid to bear to lips 

That hunger, Eastern balm. 

'Tis well no port of listless peace 

Enshields your slothful sail : 
The ship that gains the Golden Fleece 

Must dare the Euxine gale. 

'Tis well, O heart, no life of ease 

Before thee opens fair ! 
That perfect life would fail to please 

Which breathed but softer air. 

'Tis not when zephyrs kindly blow, 

And calmly, sweetly steal ; 
When waters musically flow, 

And laugh along the keel ; 

'Tis in the dashing of life's wave, 

And in the sudden shock ; 
'T is when the soul, though stout and brave, 

Is ground as on the rock, 



%> 

1 6 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

That life's objective port is neared, 

Its noblest courses run, 
And souls of men the straightest steered 

To lands beyond the sun. 



MAN. 
A Phantasy ? 



He does not think- — he does not know 
A wave is breaking on the shore ; 
A wave surcharged with richest ore, 

And tinged with deepest golden glow. 

He heeds it not — he does not know: 
It scatters pearls athwart his path; 
It bathes as in a purple bath 

The boundaries where his feet must go. 



► «- 



^ »n 

Man. — A Phantasy f 17 



He heeds it not — he passes by 

It breaks, it bursts upon the strand , 
Its wealth is squandered on the sand , 

Its pearls in shattered fragments fly. 



11. 



He does not know — he does not guess 
A flower is blossoming at his feet ; 
A flower is offering incense sweet — - 

And fading in the wilderness. 

He heeds it not — he passes on: 
Its purple petals droop and die ; 
Its wealth is wasted on the sky ; 

It might have bloomed by Helicon. 



He does not know — he does not dream: 
A star is gleaming in the sky ; 
A star that passeth swiftly by! 

A star that flames alone for him. 



Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

He sees nor feels its cheering light: 
It glows and gleams indeed, to-day ;- 
To-morrow, deepening into gray, 

Shall find it vanished in the Night. 



IV. 



He does not dream- — he does not think: 
A fountain gushes at his hand ; 
Its wealth he does not understand : 

He looks nor moves, nor stoops to drink. 



He does not think — he does not know : 
A song is trembling through the air; 
A bird is warbling anthems rare, 

And murmuring lyrics sweet and low. 

He hears nor heeds — he passes on* 
And wings are raised — a birdling flies ; 
The trembling cadence fails and dies : 

The anthem and the bird are gone. 



Sunset. 1 9 



He does not know — he does not dream 
A wave, a flower, a star, a song, 
A fountain — all to him belong, 

And all exist alone for him. 



SUNSET. 

From College Hill, overlooking the Mystic. 

The day is done : 

The imperial Sun 

Is sinking, now his course is run, 

Behind the hills of Arlington. 

Through purple mist 

I view the tryst 

The sunbeams keep with the clouds they kissed 

While descending the vale of amethyst. 



► «*■ 



20 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

Through amber haze 
I view the blaze 
Forth-streaming in red level rays 
Over hill-side paths and forest ways. 

As Moses' rod, 

Through Moses' God, 

Was lifted where the Israelites trod, 

Ere yet through the waves they rode dry shod, — 

So the Sun's last blaze, 

These Autumn days, 

Its rod of lurid enchantment lays 

Where the Mystic's crimson current plays ! 

And as Moses' word 

The Red Sea heard, 

So here, since its waves the sunset blurred, 

The hurrying current has not stirred ! 

A shadowy line 

Across the brine 

Is flung from the bank where a giant pine 

Beside the river doth low incline. 



► -#- 



► «*- 



Sunset. 2 

This, — this, in my dream, 

The place doth seem 

Where the God of the Jews, by Arabia's stream, 

The Egyptian bondsmen did redeem ! 

The Sun sinks low : 

Weird breezes blow ; 

And over the river, or fast or slow, 

Gaunt hurrying shadows come and go. 

'Tis the host — the host 

That did lately boast 

Of the power of God and the Holy Ghost ! — 

Now shivering here on the Red-Sea coast ! 

But the Sun goes down, — 

And the shadows brown 

Grow black and ominous under the frown 

Of mists that fall in the waves and drown. 

These, — these are the ranks 

That on Nilus' banks 

Afflicted the Jews without respite or thanks ! 

Ev'n now how the slave-drivers' harness clanks!- 



K* 



22 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

For a sullen roar, 

As of chains on a floor, 

Comes up from where pebbles roll o'er and o'er, 

As the ripples rush sobbing against the shore. 

But a wind sweeps down, 

Like Jehovah's frown ! 

And the billows go hurrying tow'rds the town, — 

And Pharaoh's hosts in the whirlpool drown ! 

And now in the sky, 

Serene and high, 

Floats the shield of Omnipotence tranquilly ; 

And the "pillar of fire by night " is nigh ! 



— O heart! like the Jews, 

To be led ye choose 

From a land where Doubts and Fears abuse, 

To a land where Faith all Fear subdues ! 

The prizes are mean 

That intervene : 

Be sundered ! divided ! O vapory screen ! 

And give us to walk unscathed between. 



* 



"Whither, ye stately Ships/' 1 23 



"WHITHER, YE STATELY SHIPS!" 

From Winthrop Head. 

Whither, ye stately Ships, 
In grandeur do ye ride? — 
Oh ! do ye never tremble, dreading dire eclipse, 
As silently ye glide 

Athwart the Ocean's lips ? 

Far o'er the widening seas 
Ye sail to beauteous lands, — 
Alike, 'mid Behring's ice and Sunda's odorous ease, 
Obedient to the hands 

Which bend you to the breeze. 

Proudly your course ye take 
Where ne'er before went keel ; 
Or follow in the track where thirsty myriads slake 
The intense Desire they feel 

For far-off loved-ones' sake ! 



24 



Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



Gibraltar's frowning rocks 
May shadow you in gloom ; 
But when ye have outridden the vengeful Equinox, 
Ye find deep harbor-room 

Where ne'er come tempest-shocks. 

Outward indeed, ye fly, 
And farthest oceans trace ; 
But if ye once shall gain the sought Sicilian sky, 
Homeward ye then may race 
In gladdest ecstasy ! 

Never a cargo bear 

Of shame or crime, O ships ! 
Better that whirlwind rend, or treacherous waves 
insnare, 
Than that Contagion's lips 
Should taint your Heaven-free air! 

But far as oceans stretch, 
Or Austral 's islands rise, 
Wing ye Love's message to the wild despairing- 
wretch 



■* 



"Whither, ye stately Ships /" 25 

Who, fainting, seeks the Prize 
He finds not lest ye fetch ! 

Scorched amid Central Zone, 
Crushed by Antarctic ice, 
Ever, O stately ships ! your nobler birthright own, 
Nor plunge, a sacrifice, 
With but a gurgling groan ! 

Back ! bring our sons safe back ! — - 
Our brothers, lovers, friends ! 
We had not let them sail with you your venturous 
track, 
But that our faith extends 
Beyond a drifting wrack ! 

Never betray, O ships, 
The trust reposed in ye ! 
But firm as Boatman builds, and stanch as he 
equips, 
Sail ye an Argosy 
That meets nor dreads eclipse ! 



H 

26 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

"A BREATH FROM THE FIELDS." 

[To * * * =K, who sent me a box of spring blossoms, with 
these words : " Taking my usual walk after tea, last evening, 
I came to a place dotted with violets. Beginning to gather 
them, I thought of you in your city home. Deeming that a 
breath from the fields would brighten that home a little, I 
take the liberty to send you a few."] 

"A breath from the fields!" 

Ah me ! 
Could I paint the vision I see ! 

For under the spell of these flowers 
The avenue, busy and hot, 
And the office, and work, are forgot ; 

And these granite and marble towers 
Quick vanish away, and quick 
The whole desert of fiery brick. 

"A breath from the fields ! ". . . . 

All day 
My spirit has languished to stray 

From the City of Turmoil. And now. 
On the magical carpet of Thought, 



► ■«- 



"A Breath from the Fields.'" 27 

On the pinions these blossoms have brought, 

I am wandering where the bough 
Of the elm with the maple blends, 
And the song of the robin ascends ! 

"A breath from the fields ! " 

The sweets 
Of a myriad marguerites 

Are flooding with incense the air ! 
And a dream my heart besets 
As I gaze on the violets — 

A dream and a splendor rare — 
Of a brook where the blood-root drinks, 
And the laughter of bobolinks. 

" A breath from the fields ! " 

I catch 
A view of the leafy thatch 

That waves on the meadow's marge. 
I roam in the shadows of trees 
Like those in Hesperides ! 

And I pluck from the branches the large 
White beautiful apple-sprays, 
Till the pain in my heart allays. 



28 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

"A breath from the fields !"...„. 
Thank God 
For the friend who kneeled on the sod 

To gather such glory for me ! 
The blossoms will fade ; but depart 
Will they never from out of my heart. 

There, forever, their beauty will be, 
Like the blossoms that gladden the eyes 
Of the dwellers in Paradise. 

Boston, May u, 1SS1. 



SWEETEST SONGS ARE NEVER SUNG. 



The sweetest songs are never sung, — 

So the Poets say. 
The tenderest chords are never strung ; 
The merriest bells are never rung. 



< : >%4 

Sweetest Songs are never Sung. 29 



Well-a-day ! 
Well-a-day ! 
Let the Poets have their way ! 
Let them have their way ! — 
All that sighing Minstrels sing can never me 
dismay. 
I can hear sweet bells go pealing — -pealing joy- 
ously to-day! 
I can hear their silvery pealing — hear their merry 
roundelay ! 



11. 



The fairest pearls are never found, — 

So Professors say. 
The cheeriest trumpets never sound ; 
The jauntiest vessels go aground. 

Well-a-day ! 
Well-a-day ! 
Let Professors have their way! 
Let them have their way ! — 
All that dull Professors dream can never me 
dismay ! 

H — ' — 



30 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

I can see stanch ships go sailing — sailing ever 

proudly by ! 
I can see tall masts and rigging outlined grandly 

against the sky ! 



The saintliest prayer is never said, — 

So the Preachers say. 
The daintiest board is never spread ; 
The loveliest maid is never wed. 

Well-a-day ! 
Well-a-day ! 
Let the preachers have their way ! 
Let them have their way ! — 
All that dullard Parsons dream can never me 
dismay ! 
I myself perchance know somewhat of the lights 

along the shore : — 
I myself am soon to wed that loveliest maiden 
they deplore ! 



Beacon- Lights. 31 



BEACON-LIGHTS. 



SONNET. 



The brilliant beacon-lights that bound the shore 
Guide safe the storm-tossed mariner to port : 
What matter, green or gold, or tall or short? 
What matter, shown from rock, or bluff, or tower ? 

He questions not their color, size, or power, 

But heeds their warning with his every thought : 
He heeds their warning, and the ship is brought 
To home and harbor in a happy hour. — 

Along the headlands of Life's turbulent sea 

Aye gleam undimmed the guiding lights of Love ! 
What matter, Jew, Greek, Christian, if the Light 

Be followed faithfully? — It then shall be 
A Guiding Light indeed, to Ports above : 
A pillar of cloud by day, of fire by night. 



i 



32 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



THE YACHTSMAN'S PENNANT. 

Mournful I stand on the solitary shore, 
And feel the misty sea-fogs drifting in. — 
Above the wind-swept islands, o'er and o'er, 
The darkling clouds of atmospheric gloom 
From sight the vistas of the sea entomb, 
And curtain off the scene as though it had not 
been. 

But suddenly, amid the thickening fog, — 
In yonder spot where deepest lies the gloom, 
And sea and air hold closest dialogue, — 
The drifting density a moment parts, 
And swift to earth heaven's gleaming sunshine 
darts, 
Revealing where the top-masts of a yachtsman 
loom. 

Proudly her pennant to the breeze unfolds, 
And bids my eye to read the inscription there. 

>U ■ »L 



Pentecost. 33 

I look : and in the characters it holds 
There gleams the bright emblazoned title, Hope ! 
Methinks I here may trace the horoscope 
Of life ! and gladsome Faith doth banish my de- 
spair. 



PENTECOST. 

"Wohlauf! es ruft der Sonnenschein 
Hinaus in Gottes freie Welt ! " 

— Tieck : Znversicht. 

" Pentecost, which brings 

The Spring." — Longfellow. 

O sluggish slumberer, awake ! — 

The sunlight calls thee ! 
Earth's sullen clods beneath thee quake ; 
The promised buds of Springtide break ; 
The green sedge quivers by the lake. 
No longer Winter's gloom appalls thee ; — 
But out where birds and blossoms wake, 
God's sunlight calls thee ! 
3 



34 Holiday Jd/esse, Etc. 

The bobolink beside the brook 

Sings, never weary ; 
The sobbing pine, so long forsook, 
Is loud with caw of crow and rook ; 
And where the snow-hung elder shook, 
And sighed through all the Winter dreary, 
The robins, as in ^Esop's Book, 

Chant loud and cheery. 

Within the woodland green and wild, 

The fern is springing ; 
And near the maiden-hair so mild, 
And golden mosses high up-piled, 
The violet, Nature's favorite child, 
Its fragrance on the air is flinging. — 
How often hath its breath beguiled 

My heart to singing ! 

O weary soul ! beset by toil 

From dawn till gloaming ! — 
Like Bunyan's Pilgrim, flee the broil ! 
Forsake the city's ceaseless moil ; 



I 



Pentecost. 35 



Come out, and tread the tender soil 
Of Beulah, where no footstep, roaming, 
Fails of the priceless wine and oil 
Of Nature's foaming! 

Pale students ! poring over books 

And musty Latin ! — 
Shakespeare read sermons in the brooks ! 
Through far Ionian seas and nooks 
Old Homer, godlike in his looks, 
Roved singing of earth's robe of satin ! 
And Virgil's shepherds timed their crooks 
To Nature's matin ! 

O aching feet ! enforced to tread 

Hot urban places! — 
That fain would wander, fain would wed 
The velvet of some mossy bed ! 
Ye sometime, as the Prophet said, 
Shall rove the wide Eternal spaces ! — ■ 
Rove sometime with the happy dead, 
In heavenly places ! 



+H 



b ^ — 

2,6 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

O sorrowing heart! — for her, for her, 
Who left thee weeping ! 

Canst thou not deem this wondrous stir 

Of Springtide leaf and gossamer 

A mild angelic minister? — 
This wakefulness, where all was sleeping, 

Is it not Heaven's own messenger 
To stay thy weeping ? 

Shall not the clouds that roll afar 

On Life's horizon, 
Flee too, like Winter's broken bar ? 
And in their stead a glittering star 
Arise, that y£ons shall not mar? 
This is the hope our heart relies on; 
And such shall be ! when rolls ajar 

Heaven's fair horizon ! 



*§•-•:••§> 



Concord River. 37 



CONCORD RIVER. 

My soul to-day, 
O River, wandering seaward, 
Is with thee ! 
From out the gray 
Of Memory — hurrying leeward — 
Radiantly, 
As in a dream 
Of friends dead or at a distance, 
I behold 
Thy fair, faint gleam ; 
And for thy glad existence, — 
Gay with gold 
As where there waits 
Eternal sunrise Yonder 
At the gates 
Of sapphire, — I 
A grateful prayer do ponder, 
Tremblingly. 



38 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

O strange, O mystic stream ! — • 

Slow winding to the sea : 
Oft in my nightly dream 
Thy vision comes to me ! 
Within my slumber I behold thy placid wave, 
And look with joy on thy majestic sweep ; 
And with the answering smile I crave . 
Thou smilest in my sleep ! 

Oft in my light-keeled boat, 
Thy tremulous wave afloat, 
Thy bosom me hath borne, 

Thy strength my weakness known, 
Till wearying care, and scorn, 
And every fear, were flown ; 
Until, with spell most magical, 
Thou in my bosom quelled 

All phantoms tragical, 
And pain and doubt dispelled, 
As when a cloud upon thy breast removes, 
And down the sun shines on the sea it loves. 

Full many a placid hour 

Beside thy edge I've strayed, 




" Full many a placid hour 

Beside thy edge I've strayed, 
And many a sylvan bower 
Has Fancy there displayed." 

— Rage 38. 



Concord River. 39 

And many a sylvan bower 
Has Fancy there displayed. 
Below thy historic Battle-Bridge thou coursest 

through a plain, 
There "'mid thy wide lone meadow-lands to turn 

and turn again : 
But in thy narrower, wooded course, where trees 

thy waves o'erhang, 
And where the verdure thickly lies as where the 
Sirens sang, — 
Here many a leafy, shady dell 
My feet of yore have found. 
Nor deemed ye had a parallel 
The wide earth round. 

Full oft beside thy vernal banks, 
What time might come Spring's jocund charioteer, 

Have I been mute observer of the thanks 
With which ye knew earth's natal glories near; — 
Rippling in gratitude when ye should learn 
Had come the blushing violet and fern ! 
Plashing thy emerald edge 
With joyous dew, 



40 Holiday fdlesse, Etc. 

Ye kissed with welcome pledge 
Earth's offerings new. 

And I have seen thy greeting to the stars. 
As one by one they flecked thy unruffled floor — • 
Venus, and red-browed Mars, 

And countless myriads more, 
Gleaming amid the eternal height, 
The golden diadems of Night. 
And when unto her full might grow 

The round red harvest moon, 
The one above and one below 
Made midnight like to noon : 
For mirrored wondrously within thy tide, 

Graved by a Hand unseen thy bosom o'er, 
Stood every fleck amid heaven's arches wide, 
And every shade and shadow of the shore : 
Each crooked twig, each fluttering leaf, was there, 

As truly represented as in air : 
And scarce the line the wave and land between, 
So perfect was the juncture, could by eye be seen. 

Amid the verdant foliage at thy side, 

Unknown to all the world but thee and me, 



City and Ocean. 41 

A countless classic host have lived and died, 

And linger now not e'en in memory. 
My books indeed have taught 

Of many a classic scene and holy age ; 
Yet to my soul with wisdom full as fraught 
Has been thy Springtime foliage ! 
For I have looked through thee as through a portal, 
And met the wondrous gaze of the Immortal ! 



THE MURMURING CITY AND THE 
ANSWERING OCEAN. 

Leaving the busy, brawling bustle, 
Leaving the heedless haste and hustle 
Of the never-silent city, 
Alone I sought the precincts peaceful of the roll- 
ing ocean, — - 
Rolling, rolling, never ceasing. 



42 Holiday Idles se % Etc. 

Beating for me within the city, 
Beating with throbs of tender pity 

Was there scarce a single bosom ; 
But continuous and tender were the throbbings of 
the ocean, — 
Throbbing, throbbing, never ceasing. 

Tremblingly, "'Tis the heart of Nature," 
Said I, " answering to the stature 
Of the longing in my bosom 
For the highest, holiest manhood — for the noblest 
truest manhood ! — 
'Tis the tremulous heart of Nature." 

Truly, my soul! — but more: — the rather, 
'T was the tremulous heart of the Father ! 
'T was the sympathy of the Highest, — 
Of the Highest, Holiest, Truest, — of the Creator 
to the creature, 
In his aspirations Heavenward ! 
.877. 



H > 

"A Dear little Birdy 43 



"A DEAR LITTLE BIRD." 

A dear little bird, on a little low tree, 
Sat swinging and balancing merrily. 

" O dear little bird, ere away you shall fly, 
Pray sing me your sweet little song!" said I. 

With silvery voice, from his brave little throat, 
The bird made glad melodv, note upon note. 

" O dear little innocent birdie ! " I cried, 

" I fain would invite you in faith to my side ! " 

Right instantly down, from the little low tree, 
The bird in all trustfulness flew to my knee. 

" O dear little bird, with thy coronet red> 
Still nearer, and rest in my bosom!" I said. 



*■ 



44 Holiday fdlesse, Etc. 

Close up to my heart flew the dear little bird, — ■ 
Nor ever once since from my presence has stirred. 

O Truth! like the bird, from the midst of Life's 

tree, 
Come fly to my heart and dwell likewise with me ! 
1877. 



MY DRAGON-FLY. 



[One day during the Summer there flew in at my open 
window in Boston a huge dragon-fly. Without the slightest 
hesitation my winged visitant perched himself, very familiarly, 
upon my writing-table; and with quivering wings — four great 
gauzy webs of wings — sat for a moment silently though with 
glistening eye gazing steadfastly into my face. What had called 
the tiny messenger from the sweet fields and rippling water- 
courses of his native haunts, to the dust and aridity of city 
life, I could not determine. However, as he flew in at my 
window, I had just opened and was then reading a fraternal 
letter from a dear friend, dated at his summer-home at Vineyard 
Haven (Island of Martha's Vineyard), in which letter he play- 



Sonata of the Dragon -Fly. 45 



fully wished himself a humming-bird, a butterfly, or some other 
insect-angel, in order that he might fly to my office for an hour 
and "whisper in my ear" the delights of his rural and sea-side 
home ! The coincidence of my friend's wish and the strange 
presence with me of the dragon-fly at the moment, amused me. 
And the above will sufficiently account for the supposititious 
scene of the Sonata with which my tiny visitant, during his brief 
stay, was pleased to favor me ; for the following lines, although 
printed under my name, were in reality "whispered in my ear" 
by the dragon-fly, during his not unwelcome presence upon my 
writing-table that summer afternoon. When the sweet little 
soloist had finished, he again took wing, vanishing as he had 
come. I called after him, for I fain would have had him stay; 
but he did not answer. I have often wished him back; but 
as yet, he has not come.] 



SONATA OF THE DRAGON-FLY. 

I come, I come, from distant shores; — 
From where the wide Atlantic roars 

Around my island home ; 
Where pebbly strands unbroken lie, 
Ringed round with spray-cloud mystery, 

Ringed round with silvery foam ! 

I come from where the trembling pine 
Chants chorus to the heaving brine, 
Chants sonnets to the sea ; 



4 6 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

From where the myriad-leaved elm. 
On brink of wide Neptunian realm, 
Breathes soulful melody. 

I come from meadowy retreats, 
Where violets and marguerites 

The livelong day repose ; 
Where jauntily the golden-rod 
And tufted stalks of asters nod, 

Mingled with sweet-brier rose. 

I come from where the rippling brook 
Flows free through many a sylvan nook, 

Then leaps into the sun ; 
Where ferns and grasses guard the brink 
Where butterflies descend to drink, 

Their glad life just begun. 

I come from where the oriole's nest 
Hangs hidden beyond the eager quest 

Of hawk or schoolboy hand ; 
From where the yellow-bird's golden hue 
Flits by with a flash across the blue 

Of the high arch overspanned. 



Sonata of the Dragon-Fly. 47 

I come from where at eventide 
The stars in majestic beauty glide, 

Outvying Arabia's days ; 
Where nightly the fire-fly's delicate lamp 
Gleams bright on the background cold and 
damp 

Of the furry, tasselled maize. 

I come from where no thirst of man 
Encircles the earth with rule and span, 

Or measures the soul with a gauge : 
From where the rustic may worship God, 
And fear no threatening beck or nod 

In childhood, youth, or age. 

I come, I come, from distant shores ; — 
From where the wide Atlantic roars 

Around my island home ; 
Where pebbly strands unbroken lie, 
Ringed round with spray-cloud mystery, 

Ringed round with silvery foam ! 



Holiday Idlesse, Etc 



A FACE, AND A RACE.* 

I once in a dream ran a race 

From College-Hill halls to Cremona. 

I once fell in love with a face, 

And dreamed it a love for the owner. 

The pathway was pleasant and green : 
I dreamed it would never grow dreary. 

The face, like a beautiful scene, 
Illumined my heart when aweary. 

But the road became wet — as by craft! 

With mud and with water it stained me. 
I told her my love — and she laughed! 

Nor cared she a whit how it pained me. 



I awaked from my dreaming, alas ! 

And never arrived at Cremona. 
And the beautiful face — let it pass! 

Let it fade from my heart, like the owner ! 



'From an unprinted college romance. 



■f •: 

College Hill. 49 



COLLEGE HILL. 

[Written after long Absence.] 

One thought to-day, and one alone, 

Has filled th' horizon of my mind : 
And fairer sunbeam never shone 

On eyes that long had wandered blind. 
My heart to-day, with happy thrill, 
Has been with thee, O College Hill ! 
With thee, with thee, 
O College Hill! 

The thunder of far Alpine Hills, 

The storm-cloud of the Southern Seas, 
The murmur of Spain's murmuring rills, — 
Of these I've dreamed — nor dreamed of 
ease. 
But happiest thoughts my bosom fill 
Whene'er I turn, O College Hill, 
To thee, to thee, 
O College Hill! 
4 



** 



5° 



Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



The room grows wide wherein I sit : 

These narrow, city walls expand : 
I see again thy robin flit, 

I see thy lawns on every hand, — 
As green, as vocal, as the rill 
That danced adown the sacred hill 
Of Helicon, 

O College Hill! 

I see thy rising slopes, — thy halls; — 

O Mother-Earth ! thou'rt greener there ! 
And gentler be the rain that falls, 
And sweeter, balmier be the air. 
Forever, and forever still, 
Upon thy breast, O College Hill! 
On thy loved breast, 
O College Hill! 



Again I seem to see thy trees, — 
Thy silver-maple, mountain-ash ; 

And dearer to my heart are these 
Than Eastern vine or calabash ! 



~>< 



College Hill. 51 

I would not part with these, to till 
By fair Euphrates, College Hill ! 
Or Gihon's edge, 
O College Hill! 

Again I see, — more blest than all, — 

Full many a dear, remembered face ; 
Again I hear the laugh, the call, 

The cheer that rang from place to place,— 
The laugh and cheer that echo still 
About thy halls, O College Hill, 
Could I but hear, 
O College Hill! 

Again, in thought, I grasp the hand 

Of comrades north and southward gone; — 
I follow them ! and in the land 

Of Danube, Rhine and Amazon 
Again I feel the electric thrill 
I knew on thee, O College Hill, 
When hand clasped hand 
On College Hill! 



52 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

O sacred slopes ! where first my heart 
With wider hope for man was fired ! 
Be ne'er forgot, though years depart, 
The Hope Eternal there inspired ! 
And, dying, could my body fill 
A grave on thee, O College Hill, 
I'd die content, 

O College Hill! 



OLD TIMOTHY JOHN, AND HIS FRE- 
QUENT REFRAIN, 

" POTATOES ! OH, POTATOES ! " 

A CHARACTER SKETCH. 

Not all the heroes of the earth 

Have gained their victory with the sword 
Not every child of noble birth 

Hath borne the escutcheon of a lord. 



Old Timothy John. 53 

Full oft, perchance, by crumbling tomb, 
By darkling waters' whirling flow, 

May star-eyed asters beauteous bloom, 
And fragrant-everlasting grow ! 



Old Timothy John was a marvelous man, 
And always a happy one, too, as he ran 
In the rear of his load of potatoes. 
"Six dollars, and health, and a hand-cart! " said he ; 
"Oh, who in the city can wealthier be! — 
'Potatoes ! Oh, Potatoes ! ' " 

The hush of the morning was stirred by his voice, 
And ever till evening he offered a choice 

Of several kinds of potatoes. 
"I warrant them sound as a drum !" cried John, 
Though this was a hollow comparison ! — 
"■Potatoes! Oh, Potatoes!" 

Nor ever a wife or a child had he ; 
Poor fellow ! no weight ever lay on his knee 
But a bushel or so of potatoes. 



54 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

His cart was his wife, and his child, and his friend ; 
"To a family-carriage," said he, "I pretend! — 
'Potatoes! Oh, Potatoes!'" 

Full certainly Tim was a marvelous man, 
And quite a philosopher, too, as he ran 
In the rear of his load of potatoes. 
"A pox o' your logic!" cried moralist John: 
"Men soon would decease if they didn't live on — 
Potatoes! Oh, Potatoes J '" 

"An' talk o' your ' Nature ' and ' Physics' ! " said Tim, 
While staring his audience looked at him 

And then at his load of potatoes. 
"Ho, ho ! " he said, shoving his cart in the pause, 
"Isn't here an effect that's ahead o' the cause? — 
'Potatoes ! Oh, Potatoes ! ' " 

Not much of a Christian, perhaps, was Tim ; 
But often his measure ran over the brim 

As he sold to the poor their potatoes. 
"Don't mind the odd sixpence," he also would say, 
If he saw they were really ill able to pay. 
"Potatoes! Oh, Potatoes!" 



* 



Old Timothy jfohn. 55 

The boys loved his coming ; and often they cried, 
"Oh, please ! dear old Tim! " — -so he gave them a ride 

On the top of his load of potatoes. 
The girls loved his coming; — and one, I know, 
Once threw him a kiss ! though he called it "a blow ! " 
"Potatoes! Oh, Potatoes/" 

Not much of a scholar, perhaps, was he ; 
Though seldom he passed in an "X" for a " V" 

As he paid for a load of potatoes. 
"Oh, where is your grammar 1 '" cried Timothy John : 
"Two tens and a cypher don't make twenty-one! — 
'Potatoes ! Oh, Potatoes ." " 

No loud politician was honest old Tim ; 
Yet no one could purchase a vote of him 

Though they bought his whole load of potatoes. 
"I vote for the man I think most of," said he, 
"And he wouldn't offer a bribe to me! — 
'Potatoes/ Oh, Potatoes/'" 

"My choice is the man," cried Timothy John, 
" Who'll help push the world's great hand-cart on ! — 
And none of your 'small potatoes.' 



56 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

The man who could purchase my vote when he would, 
Would purchase my liberty, too, if he could ! — 
'Potatoes/ Oh, Potatoes!'" 

Full certainly Tim was a marvelous man, 
And always a happy one, too, as he ran 
In the rear of his load of potatoes. 
He sang from a heart overflowing and free, 
And never mistrusted Futurity he. — 
"Potatoes! Oh, Potatoes!" 

But Timothy John, a few harvests ago, 
Was noticed as steering unwontedly slow 

With his cargo of new potatoes. 
"In the Spring," he would say, "I shall go under 

ground ; — 
The biggest potato the hemisphere round ! 
' Potatoes ! Oh, Potatoes ! ' " 

God grant that if Tim has indeed since found 
The Garden where fruits are supposed to abound, — 

Though never, perhaps, potatoes, — 
God grant that his voice may be heard on high 
In loftier strains than his own old cry, — 
"Potatoes! Oh, Potatoes!" 



"I feel that I know Her." 57 



"I FEEL THAT I KNOW HER." 

I feel that I know her — we smile as we meet; 
We pass every day in the very same street, — 
She hurrying on — heaven only knows where, 
And I in pursuit of ambitions of air. 

But who she may be, or the place of her home, 
Or why through the city forced daily to roam, 
Or married or single, a maiden or mother, 
I'm sure I don't know, any more than another. 

Her eyes are a tender and beautiful blue ; 

Her hair is the glossiest, goldenest hue ; 

Her cheeks are as red as the roses in blow, — 

And her heart is the garden, I feel, where they grow. 

We never have spoken — we smile and go by; 
No greeting we utter — except with the eye: 
Thank God she is modest, retiring, and true ! — 
And I am as modest and innocent too. 



►H- 



►K >U 



58 Holiday fd/esse, Etc. 

Full often I wonder her name and her station ; 

I've known from the first she is foreign by na- 
tion. 

Her language — ah me! would that language were 
mine ! — 

The land of her birth is the land of the Rhine. 

O Germany ! land of sweet music and song ! 
My feet for thy vine-covered terraces long ! 
With her for a guide through thy sun-purpled air, 
How gladly my heart would go wandering there ! 

Some castle enthroned in thy hills there must 

be, 
That shelter would furnish for her and for me ! 
Some crag overhanging some vine-embowered vale, 
Where beauty might bloom, and where love would 

not fail ! 

Ah me ! such a spot it were pleasant to see ; 

And pleasanter far in its secret to be ! 

But flee — flee ! ye castles, and day-dreams so 

fair ! 
'Tis true ye are castles — but castles in air. 



*" 



"I feel that I know Her." 59 

To-morrow I'll meet her again ; and her smile 

Will lighten life's roadway for many a mile. 

That face in my dream, were life's journeying 

done, 
Would lumine the pathway that leads to the sun ! 

Ah well! and that day — it will come at the last. 
Our eyes will be dull, and our smiles will have 

passed. 
And never, perhaps, will our voices be heard, 
Nor ever our souls by those accents be stirred. 

Perchance in the streets that are nigh to 

the Throne, 
Where the heart will have voice, though the tongue 

be unknown, 
We each will discern who the other may be, — 
I better know her, and she better know me. 



*!••:••§> 



6o 



Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



LITTLE BOY HARRY. 

Thou brave little fellow, so lightsome and free, 

cease, for a moment, thy frolicsome play ; 

little boy Harry! come close to my knee! — 
Come nearer, and listen to what I shall say. 

1 think of thee often, as last I beheld thee ; 

1 love to remember thine earnest -young face, — 
So tender and winsome, as often I held thee, 

Rejoiced at beholding thy manifest grace. 

So noble and earnest thy constant expression, 
So grandly embodied within thee was Truth, 

I gladly would sacrifice every possession 

To know that my life was as pure as thy youth! 



* 



And when I remember "of such as" my Harry 
"Is made up the kingdom of Heaven" above, 

No cause have I longer to grieve that I tarry ; — 
Already I reign in that kingdom of Love ! 



Little Boy Harry. 61 

O dear little fellow ! a blessing be on thee ! 

God grant thy whole life may be holy as now ! 
And when the great Future with laurels shall crown 
thee, 

I pray they may rest on as noble a brow ! 

Before thee the Future is slowly appearing ; — 
Though years must elapse ere thy manhood be 
nigh : 

O little boy Harry! ne'er doubting nor fearing, 
Press faithfully on, till life's goal thou descry. 

But laugh and be merry while youth thou retainest ! 

For childhood's glad pleasures will shortly be 
gone : 
The sterner refrain of thy life yet remainest, 

And strength will be needed for conflicts anon. 

Before thee the Future as yet is unfolding ; 

But trials and triumphs will one day be past : 
O little boy Harry! thy footsteps upholding, 

May heaven and its angels enfold thee at last ! 

1876. 



H* 



62 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 



TO MY FRIENDS ACROSS THE MYSTIC. 

Three friends I have, beyond the widening river 
Which separates my city home from theirs : 
Wavelets at times roar loudly, 
But still my boat steers proudly ; 
And oft when Evening's flambeaux on the hurrying 
current quiver, 
I follow where yon faintly flickering Polar radi- 
ance flares. 

Downward the Dipper, on my passage frowning, 
May strive at times to bar my onward way : 
Yet, with glad illumination, 
Still the brilliant constellation 
Beckons onward to the city the wide southern hill- 
slope crowning, — ■ 
Yonder strangely silent city that lies nestling by 
the Bay. 



To my Friends across the Mystic. 63 

Fierce February tides may swash in sadness, 
And hurrying ice-floats surge to meet the sea : 
But ice is but liquid solid, 
And its texture aught but stolid 
When my sturdy keel, urged onward by prospective 
warmth and gladness, 
Crashes boldly towards the beacon on the distant 
snow-clad lea ! 

Or, perchance, — -when newly flower-decked, fern- 
decked, moss-decked, 
Yonder uplands turn in Springtime to the sun, 
And across the Mystic's flurry 
Still with flashing oars I hurry, — 
Vernal zephyrs from the highlands of old Powder- 
horn and Prospect 
Whisper softly of the Summer in my own heart 
just begun ! 

O my friends! — faithful friends! — whose frequent 
kindness 
I perchance may never half or tenth repay : 



64 



Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



Gladly I this thought do render 
Of Regard full true and tender, — 
Lest that Gratitude with warning voice accuse my 
soul of blindness, 
And I fail on Friendship's altar slightest offering 
to display! 

Boston, 1S7S. 



MEDFORD BELLS. 



Collegk Hill, Early Autumn, 1S79. 



Loud on the murky mid-day air 
The Medford bells are ringing. 
Bold is the verberant rhyme they blare, 
Dull is the threnody wild they dare, 
Doubts to my glad heart bringing. 



-►f 






Medford Bells. 65 

Dun are the meadows! — in the sky 
Thick clouds of leaves are whirling ! 

Sturdiest friendships swiftly fly ; 

yEons and ages are passing by, 
Depths into darkness hurling! 



Calm on the candent evening air 
The Medford bells are ringing. 
Mild is the musical chime they bear, 
Gladly their sibilant song I share, 
Peace to my sad heart bringing. 

Ah! of what matter browning fields! 

What matter flowers that wither ! 
Brighter-far blossoms Wisdom yields ; 
Stronger-far sceptre Virtue wields; — 

Come ! let us wander thither ! 

5 



66 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



"TO-DAY THE WINDS OF MARCH 
ARE WILD." 

[Winthrop, March 27, 1881.] 

To-day the winds of March are wild. 
The swallows huddle 'neath the shore; 
Their wings are still — they cannot fly. 
But yonder, whirled about the sky, 
The gulls are circling, o'er and o'er. 
The gull is Ocean's passive child. 

The winds of Fate adversely blow. 
My friends and fellows do not sing ; 

They sing but when the waves are calm. 
I look not always for the palm, 
I take what laurels Fate may bring. 
With cypress crowned sometimes I go. 



Daffodils. 67 



DAFFODILS, 



Inscribkii to 'J' — — W- 



Within the winding woodland aisles 

Which stately crown our Stoneham hills, 
A myriad wilding daffodils 

Bloom gladly where the sunbeam smiles. 

How they in such unwonted earth 

Found home and blossomed, none may know 
But buds of a more beauteous glow, 

Ne'er, out of poet's brain, had birth. 

Anigh their vernal, mossy bed, 

The pine stands whispering to the spruce ; 

The striped squirrel — gay recluse! — 
Swings in the branches overhead. 



-H« 



68 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

Around their prize the wondering bees, 
To such soft sweetness all unused, 
Buzzingly gather till infused 

With honey of Hesperides ! 

Thither the Naiads also come ; 
Thither the fairies fly in haste : 
Never more humble courtiers graced 

A Beauty's court in Christendom. 

Even the lady-ferns and sedges, 
Turning in sweet surprise to greet 
The beauty nestling at their feet, 

Give the pale strangers welcome pledges. 

Thither I, too, my steps retrace, 
Seeking the inspiration there ; 
Meeting within that charmed air 

A benediction face to face. 



Wearily, wearily my feet 

Were wandering 'mid the fern-clad hills 



►H- 



Daffodils. 69 

What if for me the daffodils 
Had ne'er unveiled their faces sweet! 

I drew anigh them as the gloom 
Of evening clad the hills with gray, 
And all the darkness of my way 

Grew glorious with their early bloom. 



() friend! — my friend, though ne'er thy voice 

To me a syllable hath said ! 

Forgive if I unbidden tread 

Where thou hast called me to rejoice. 

A down the Campus merrily, — 

Myself unseen, — I saw thee go ! — 
Saw the exuberant overflow 

Of the young life embound in thee. 

The glow thy vermeil cheek which fired ; 
The music of thy merry laugh ; — 



►J< , , , 

70 Holiday fdlesse, Etc. 

Nor sordid gold had given half 
The benediction these inspired ! 

Around thee breathed the morning air ; 

The grass was springing at thy feet ; 

A robin from his green retreat 
Chanted for thee a cheery prayer. 

The sighing pine for thee would sing ! 

The murmuring breeze for thee be calm! — 
Deem it not strange a lowly psalm 

/ humbly to thy altar bring ! 

Wearily, wearily my feet 

Were wandering in the Valley of Doubt : 
Thou spake! — in chaos Light gleamed out! 

Darkness thenceforth was obsolete. 

I drew anigh thee as the gloom 

Of Sorrow clad Life's hills with gray, 
And all the darkness of my way 

Grew glorious with thy early bloom. 



4 



Daffodils. 7 1 

What if it had been missed by me? — 
The vision of thy fair young face ! 
What if my bonds thy buoyant grace 

Had ne'er unbound and set me free ! 



To me henceforth, through life, as now, 
Sacred the spot where thou didst stand ! 
Sacred the pressure of thy hand 

Invisible upon my brow! 

Sacred the spot where thou didst stand ! — 
Thither the angels frequent fly, 
Angels like those that met the eye 

Of Jacob in a foreign land. 

Thither I, too, my steps retrace, 

Seeking the inspiration there ; 

Meeting within that charmed air 
A benediction face to face. 

ili.kck Hii.i., May, 1.S79. — Tuftom 



■+» -4 



72 Holiday Jdlesse, Etc. 



THE BELLS OF COMO. 

[Read before the Zetagathean Society* of Tufts College 
Divinity School, at its Seventh Literary Anniversary, May 
26, 1881.] 



'Zetagathean Society," — 'I'he Soriety seeking Good. 

In Italy beyond the sea, — 
Dim, mediaeval Italy, — 

When she, whose ancient power and pride 
Had been for centuries thrown aside, 
Was slowly waking from her sleep ; 
And with the inspiration deep 
And ardor of a second birth, 
Among the nations of the earth 
Was taking precedence and place; — 
When all the Caesar-line was dust, 
And nothing but decay and rust 
Remained of the Imperial race ; 



-►« 



The Bells of Como. 73. 

And a new line of kings had come, 
Immortal throughout Christendom, — 
Dante and Michael Angelo, 
And Petrarch and Boccaccio; — 
When she, so long the nations' scoff, 
Had risen and flung her languor off, 
And, waking, had betrayed her skill 
In marble, and her power to thrill 
And captivate with harmony 
A waiting, rapt humanity ; — 
In Italy beyond the sea. 
Dim, early modern Italy, 
Was born one day a little child, — 
A little weakling ! as if he, 
For whom was meant a destinv 
Amazing, luring, mocking, wild, 
Blissful at times, at times severe, — ■ 
Humble, exalted, mild, austere, — 
Had been by Nature sent to be 
Even in birth an epitome 
Of all the dread, magnificent, 
Vain-glorious accomplishment 
Of his own native monarchy. 



g. 

74 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

He was a marvel of a child, 
His mother thought — the neighbors knew; 
For often, as he lay, he smiled ; 
And closing his clear eyes of blue, 
Would bend his ear as if he caught 
Some echo of angelic thought, — 
The murmur of rhythmic melody, 
A strain of heavenly harmony. 

When out of babyhood he passed, 
And grew in stature, — and at last 
Had come to boyhood, — all his art, 
Untried, imperfect, yet in part 
Revealing what was in his heart, 
Was raptly exercised to bring 
From brass, from iron, from everything 
That answered with melodious ring 
When he should touch it, such a tone 
As always, when he was alone, 
Seemed ringing in the air around, — 
The song stiH present, and the sound, 
Which once, when he a baby lay, 
The angels sang to him each day. 



The Bells of Como. 75 

And as he labored still, apart, 

And leaned to listen, — and on wings 

Of eager wishes would ascend 

Where yonder anthems seemed to blend, 

Echoing without hush or end, — 

His mother wondered at these things, 

And pondered them within her heart. 

" What is it, Michael ? " she one day 
Entreated, — " Tell me your desire ! 
Your eyes are radiant with a fire 
Like that on Como when the sun 
Is setting and the day is done. 
What is it! tell it me, I pray!" 
But Michael only turned away. 
He had no words, no heart, to say, 
Unto his mother even, as yet, 
The longing that was in his soul — 
The wish not yet in his control. 
But as he turned, his eyes were wet ! 
For even then there seemed to rise 
The ever-swelling harmony, 
The far-off angel melody, 
Filling: the blue ethereal skies 



"V 



* 



7« 



Holiday fdlesse, Etc. 



With sweetest notes, as if to wound 
His spirit with ideal sound. 

Swiftly the months and seasons ran, — 
The youth still musing, — till one day. 
With something of a wild dismay, 
He woke and found himself a man. 
His thought, his toil, his frequent prayer, 
Had brought no laurel to his side ; 
His soul was still unsatisfied, 
His chimes were still but in the air. 

His chimes ! For it was Michael's aim, 
In manhood as in youth the same, — 
His one endeavor, — to create 
So marvelous a chime of bells, 
So fair and void of parallels, 
That they the soul would captivate, 
And a delighted world would own 
The music of their silver tone. 

"Some brotherhood of friars," said he, 
"Some convent here in Italy, 
Will gladly purchase them of me ! 



►H- 



•>< 



H+ 



The Bells of Como. 77 

Through all the world their fame will flow, 
And pilgrims here will come and go ; 
And honor will be mine, and I 
Will build me here a cottage fair, 
And on the morn and evening air, 
Ascending hither, fleeing there, 
Will hear their music till I die." 

No jangling chimes like those that rung 
Throughout the vale where Como lay, 
When knelt the brotherhood to pray, 
Would Michael make ! but on the day 
When first his silvery bells were swung, 
The monks and friars should all confess- 
Not sins alone and idleness — 
But that their prayers before had known 
No inspiration like the tone 
That echoed from the belfry-throne 
Where Michael's chimes had gained access ! 
Surpassed their music should not be 
By any flute of Arcady, 
Or any Hebrew timbrel old, 
Or any fabled Harp of Gold, 
Or any violin whose fame 



78 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

Had given to its maker's name 

A lustre more than marvelous, — 

A halo such as still adheres 

To him who wrote upon his work 

A name which through the deathless years 

In Music's memory will lurk, — 

"Antonio Stradivarius." 

For years, in secret, Michael strove, 
Untiring, in a little grove, 
Casting and tuning still, anew, 
The metal cups from which he drew 
His hope of honor, wealth, and fame. 
Alike to him were praise and blame, 
Coming from those who nothing knew 
Of his intention or his aim. 
Baffled a myriad times, again 
Untiringly he toiled • and when 
With fleeing years his faith grew dim, 
Again the angels came to him. 

And so he strove — nor strove in vain : 
For in the end his patient pain 
Accomplished all his heart's desire. 

U _►■ 



The Bells of Como. 79 

He labored with his soul on fire ; 
And catching from the angels' song 
The melody he missed so long, 
He tuned in ecstasy sublime 
The clanging bells to perfect chime ; 
Until they rang a silver tone, 
The echo of the angels' own. 

A week now hardly passed away, 
When on the artist, pleased and proud, 
There called with offer rich and rare 
A neighboring friar of orders gray ; 
Who, having blest himself, and bowed, 
And laid his hand on Michael's hair, 
"I come, my brother," — so he spake, — 
"For this your masterpiece to make 
With earnest prayer the prior's request. 
We offer you a price, and take, 
With eager thankfulness confessed, 
And many a benediction rich, 
The wondrous metal marvels, which, 
By holy Mother Mary blest, 
Aided by tireless prayer and thought, 
The cunning of your hands has wrought." 



4. 



►<- 



8o 



Holiday fdlesse, Etc. 



This the beginning was. The rest, 
Just as he long had dreamed it all, 
Now came to Michael, with such speed 
That in a month his cottage wall, — 
Carrara covered, tiled and tall, — 
Had risen on the margin wide 
Of beautiful blue Como's side ; 
And he from toil and want was freed ! 

At morning now, at noon and night, 
In rapture at his cottage door, 
Sheltered from summer heat and light 
By clustering vine and sycamore, 
Entranced did Michael daily sit, 
Intently waiting the joyful peal, 
The anthem glad and glorious, 
Which from the convent on the height 
That rose his homestead opposite 
Announced the inmates' hour to kneel- 
Betrayed, with sudden and loud appeal, 
Of pious intent their overplus- — 
Or sounded the holy Angelus. 



Diviner melody than these 



The Bells of Como. 81 

No chimes in all the world could ring ; 
To all who harkened, heavenly ease, 
And pardon, such as angels sing 
When mortals fall upon their knees, 
Their notes seraphic seemed to bring. 
To Michael's thought the blest retreat 
Of Eden had no music higher. 
Not fabled Orpheus' golden lyre 
Had ever sounded half so sweet. 
And if at favored Michael's feet 
Nor rock nor forest bowed and sang, 
His soul was often glorified 
With a triumphant, joyful pride 
Which Orpheus never knew or dreamed : 
For when at morn or eventide 
His chimes their silver music rang, 
To him — ah! then to him it seemed 
The waiting angels circled low, 
And caught and raised the echo high, 
And flung it over hill and glen ; 
And when the anthem ceased to flow, 
Upbore it with them to the sky, 
And closed it with a sweet Amen. 
6 



82 Holiday /(//esse, Etc. 

But now throughout the peaceful vale, 
Along the placid lakelet's marge, 
The storm of war, its iron hail, 
The beat of angry foreign flail, 
The clash of feudal spear and targe, 
Came suddenly and awfully. 

As when, from out a summer sky, 
Where flakes of fairest amber hue 
Against a ground of gold and blue 
All day have floated gorgeously, 
There leaps a sudden awful flash, 
The lightning's angry augury ; 
And with a quick, tumultuous crash 
The thunder follows, and the pale 
Blue zenith thickens with the charge 
Of cloudy cohorts ; and the large 
And sturdy oak, — which hitherto, 
Whatever stormy tempest blew, 
Had towered unsmitten, — when the hail 
And whirlwind and the furious blow 
Have ceased, lies shattered, rootless, low, 

All lifeless ; so throughout the vale 

Of Como, and through all the land, 



The Bells of Como. 



83 



There came the storm of war ; and so, 
When turmoil met its overthrow, 
And the red, desolating brand 
Had fallen from the invading hand, 
And Michael again reached his home 
From fighting in the ranks of Rome, 
No stone above another stood 
Where once his hard-earned habitude 
Had reared its modest tower and dome. 
The grove, where he for years had toiled, 
The torch had ruthlessly despoiled. 
And more calamitous than all, 
Gone was the monkish brotherhood ! 
And erst where cell and cloister stood, 
And prayer reechoed, wall to wall, — 
Now wrapped in winding-sheet and pall, 
The convent in a ruined heap 
Of ashes lay upon the steep. 
And Michael's bells ! his masterpiece ! 
His peerless, his unrivaled bells, 
Whose chimes were never more to cease ! 
The mocking mob of infidels 
Had stolen them away, and left 
Their maker mournful and bereft. 



I 



84 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

The light was taken from his eyes ; 
The gate was shut on Paradise. 

''Alas!" he murmured. "Woe is me! 
My cup, for all futurity, 
Is filled with misery to the brim ! " 
What now indeed remained for him ! 
His home, his family, his health 
For labor, and his little wealth, 
These all were gone! — And even the sound 
That once had echoed in the air, 
Luring him upward from the ground 
With melody beyond compare, — 
Sounding from heavenly citadels, — 
This too had vanished with his bells. 

Or so it seemed to him at first. 
For afterwards, as he one day 
Was kneeling on the ground to pray, — ■ 
The ruined ground, where he of yore 
Had sat beside his cottage door ! — 
Upon his ear a sudden burst 
Of the old melody on high 
Rang rapturously. And from the sky 



► «- 



The Bells of Coma. 85 

A voice angelic, clear and loud, 
Came searchingly. " No more delay ! 
Up, Michael ! up ! " it seemed to say ; 
"Why stand ye here, with forehead bowed 
And footsteps- idle ? Follow on ! 
Somewhere your bells their joyful tone 
Are ringing even now ! Be gone ! 
Seek them afar, and claim your own ! " 

So Michael rose ! nor stayed an hour. 
New hope was in his heart ; and power 
To journey, did the need require, 
From the blue skies and silver seas 
Of his own Temperate Italy, 
To where the Tropic's flaming sky 
Unrolled its canopy of fire, 
Or where the desolate Arctic breeze 
Blew cold above the mountains drear 
Of the waste northern hemisphere. 
So seized he in that selfsame hour 
His cloak and staff and shallow purse, 
Intent in every hall and tower, 
And every hamlet, to rehearse 



86 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

The history of his stolen bells — 
The fair and void of parallels ! 

Steadfast he wandered here and there, 
Seeking his darlings everywhere. 
And not alone in Italy, 
Beneath his native skies of blue, 
But where the Jura mountains threw 
Their shadows on Geneva's sea. 
Not up and down the Alps alone, 
And through and through the Appennine, 
But where the Danube and the Rhine 
Upreared their convent-towers of stone. 
Who knew but here perchance his bells 
Rang out in grief their stolen tone ! 
"Who knows," he cried, "but here there dwells 
A respite for my grief and pain, 
And here my ears, so weary grown, 
Shall ring with harmony again ! " 
But when he heard the clang and roar 
That echoed up and down the slopes, 
Sounding from many a convent-shrine, 
Vanished again were all his hopes. 



►H- 



The Bells of Co?no. 87 

"Alack!*' he sighed, "they are not mine!" 

His bells revealed their secret lore 

In heavenly harmony ! but these, 

What ear could deem their notes divine, 

Or call their anthems melodies ! 

The seasons went, and came ; and went, 
And came again : and still his way, 
Across and through the continent, 
Untiringly, day after day, 
Michael pursued, through cold and heat. 
Ten, — twenty, — thirty years his feet 
Onward unceasingly were bent! 
Far to the East his steps were turned, — 
To where, on priest-fed altars, burned 
Unfading fire ; and to the shrine 
Of Bethlehem in Palestine. 
Even through India and Cathay 
His search unfaltering he made. 
No distance could his zeal evade. 
His chimes seemed never far away : 
On mountain, o'er the desert sand, 
On lake, on river, on the land, 



i 



88 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

Ever they sounded loud and clear, 
Ringing triumphant in his ear. 
His form was bent, his beard was gray, 
His wrinkled face was bronzed and burned 
But as a traveler in the night, 
Groping, and waiting for the light, 
Yet walking still, — so Michael turned, 
And waited for the coming dav. 

It was in Greece, at last, that news 
Arrived to Michael of his bells — 
Amid the towers and citadels 
Of Athens, where, to pray and muse, 
And stray an hour, and lean upon 
The ruins of the Parthenon, 
Had come at length his weary feet. 
A traveler here he met, replete 
With stories wonderful, who said : 
"Somewhere in yonder Western Seas 
I heard their marvelous melodies ! " 
But where, he could not say; — for dead, 
Now, in his memory, the ground 
Where he had listened to their sound. 



The Bells of Como. 

But Michael had at least a cue ; 
And hurrying to Italy, 
His way he purposed to pursue 
Along the borders of the sea, 
Through all the countries of the West, 
And there, God willing, end his quest. 

In a few days his feet had come 
To buried Herculaneum ; 
And when he saw the mountain's brim, 
Piercing the cloud-rack over him, — 
Gazing as with defiant air 
Upon the wasted cities there, — 
On Michael's burning heart the tears 
Fell thick and fast for wasted years ; 
As on Vesuvius' burning height 
The rain fell hissing in the night. 

Then north, to the unblest estate 
Where ancient Rome sat desolate, — ■ 
Discrowned, like Lear, by daughters she 
Had pampered in prosperity. 
And there in Rome, at last ! he heard 



4- 



90 Holiday fd/esse, Etc. 

The story he so long had sought. 
He met a mariner, who brought 
The grateful, long-expected word, 
That yonder on the sun-lit shore 
Of Erin there were silver bells, 
So fair and void of parallels, 
That he who heard would fain implore 
That he might hear them evermore. 

A month went by. A little bark 
Was moored on Shannon's placid tide. 
A boat was pushing from her side ; 
And o'er the silver wave the dark 
Fantastic turret of St. Mary's lay, 
Far-shadowed by the dropping day. 

Kneeling within the little boat, 
His streaming eyes upon the tower, 
Was Michael ! — Happy, happy hour ! 
"O bells! " he cried, — "one marvelous note! 
Long have I toiled and sought for thee ! 
Ring out ! ring out, and welcome me ! 
Ring at the setting of the sun ! 
Ring ! and my pilgrimage is done ! " 



■+■«« 



The Bells of Cotno. 91 

The answer came ! A silvery shower 
Burst from the old cathedral tower ! 
A smile illumed the wanderer's face : 
His heart sang inward jubilee. 
The bells were his ! and time nor place 
Had marred or dulled their melody. 

But Michael ! When the rowers sought 
To take in theirs his withered hand, 
And rouse him, as they neared the land, 
They did his guardian-angels wrong! 
His soul the seraph-hosts had caught, 
And borne it upward with the song ! 
The melody was Michael's knell — 
The anthem was his passing-bell! 



And now, my brothers ! at whose word 
Of cordial welcome and command 
I come again a little while 
To greet you and to take your hand, 



H 

92 Holiday fd/esse, Etc. 

And meet your well-remembere-d smile, 

And read to you> in simple phrase. 

In memory of other days, 

This verse of mine! — Your kindly word 

To come to you I gladly heard ; 

Though deeming I had little right 

The place or power to emulate 

Of those who on a loftier height, 

Beholding more seraphic light, 

Have power the heart to captivate. 

The silvery phrase which Sidney knew, 

The golden light which Milton drew 

With cunning hand across his verse, 

My pen indeed may not rehearse, 

Nor in its highest ecstasy 

Attain the sweet simplicity 

Of Bryant's or of Wordsworth's art : 

But pondering as best I might 

A song to touch the thinking heart, 

And questioning what land, what date, 

What freak of Fortune or of Fate, 

What winter gloom or summer light 

I best might open to your sight, 



■*n 



— >] 

The Bells of Como. 93 

O brothers, I have brought you this ! 

And though indeed the gleam you miss 

Which other hand had made more bright, 

To you this Legend Beautiful, 

Of patience under painful rule, 

Of innocence as white as wool, 

Of eager wandering to regain 

Surcease of weariness of brain, 

And finding only death and pain,— 

To you this legend I relate, 

To you this tale I dedicate. 

Ye are the Seekers after Good ! 
On earth ye have no habitude. 
Your lives ye dedicate in youth 
To painful, long, unending search, — 
And in the portals of the Church 
Seek Knowledge and Eternal Truth ! 
To-day, of Truth perchance the prize 
Ye think ye hold before your eyes. 
Through care, and toil, and anxious thought, 
The melody ye long have sought 
Seems ringing in the sun-lit air ; 



i 



94 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

And ye are confident, forsooth, 

And "Thus and so," ye say, "is Truth!" 

What shall I say to you? — Beware? 
Clasp not with fervor to your soul 

A dream so flattering ? so unreal ? 

I would not mock your glad appeal ! 

Far rather would my hand unroll, 

If such were possible, a scroll 

On which were written, "Yea! your search 

Has led you to the one true church ! 

Your dream — it is indeed The Truth, 

And ye are conquerors ev'n in youth ! " 

Alas ! we know not where it lies ! 
It is not ours with seraph's eyes 
To pierce God's hidden destinies ! 
We seek, we knock, we vainly call, 
Like Pilate in the council-hall. 
And still the Christ no answer makes ! — 
And still the rabble comes, and takes, 
And carries him without the wall ! 



The Bells of Como. 95 

What then ? Shall we forbear our toil ? 
Blow out our lamp ? neglect the oil ? 
Repose on some Calypso-beach, 
Or to the hall of Circe flee? 
Heaven lies not far beyond our reach : 
We almost hear its melody. 
A messenger has shown the way ; 
We heed, we follow on To Know. 
But only when, like Michael, we 
Are met by angels, and the glow • 
And glamour of the life below 
Is merged in the refulgent ray 
And beauty of the Heavenly Day, 
Will the sweet Truth we long have sought 
Unto our waiting; souls be brought. 



*H-4> 



e>H- 



►+« — — >I« 



96 Holiday Id/esse, Etc. 



MOTHER AND SON. 

In the heart of a city of wealth untold, 

In the heart of a city with wealth grown cold, 

A Woman, with weary heart and brain, 
Bowed trembling beneath a load of pain. 

The firelight danced on her darkened wall : 
But it danced in figures tragical. 

A beam from the Occident sun shone in : 
But it gleamed with the flash of a javelin. 

The man she had loved, — whose home had been 

hers, — 
Was lying to-day 'mid the sepulchres ! 

With eager embrace, in her desolate grief, 
The babe at her breast gave a glad relief: 



►* 



Mother and Son. 97 

"Oh wait, my soul!" On her startled sight 

A gleam from the Future flashed clear and bright. 

" Oh wait ! till my boy perchance shall grow 
To realize what he so soon must know : 

" He then in my heart shall fill the void 
Left desolate by hopes destroyed ! " 

— The years swept past ; and with turbulent tread : 
Yet Hope still lingered, nor Faith grew dead. 

The mother, with earnest heart and smile, 
Toiled alway, and sang at her toil the while. 

Earnest she labored from week to week ; 
And hardly she kept the bloom in her cheek. 

The race was long, the burden was hard ; 
But onward she struggled, nor sought reward. 

Her bright little boy, now five years old, 
Was growing in graces manifold. 

7 



98 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

If his body was little, his heart was big ; 

And his thought could go light over many a league. 

He oft at her side her labor condoled, 
And listened to many a tale she told. 

The light of her love in her eye shone clear ; 
For her heart was a fountain of love and cheer : 

And a prayer for her darling, with every word, 
Went up to a Throne where prayer is heard. 

With a smile and a tear the eye of the boy 
Oft flashed on his mother an answer of joy. 

His quivering lip in expectancy lay; — 

For the end of each story himself could say : 

A kiss and embrace, a caress and a smile, 
And rapture in perfect fruition the while! 



His eyes wore a look that a limner might give 
To a Babe in a Manger — contemplative, 



<if 



Mother and Son. 99 

And full of the wonder that filled the thought 
Of Christ when he saw what the Magi brought. 

A flash of the Future oft flits o'er his face, 

As he ponders the proverbs her sweet lips trace ; 

And his heart, with never a shadow of pain, 
Cries "Wait, my dear mother, — until I am ten! 

"The labor my father for thee had begun, 
Completed shall be by the hand of his son. 

"Oh wait! and the love which so truly is mine, 
Returned with rich interest shall be thine ! " 

■ — -Full swift is the pace Time's chariot drives ! 
The boy at the age of his wish arrives : 

But ah ! though his heart is willing and large, 
He cannot yet stagger 'neath helmet and targe. 

Again he beseeches, — his tears between, — 
"O wait, my dear mother! — I soon am fifteen! 



► ««■ 



-►"* 



ioo Holiday Id/esse, Etc. 

"The hands which now are so slender and thin 
Will soon be grown stouter, and stronger of skin. 

"The heart of a man, if in garb of a boy, 

Is deemed by the world too untried to employ ! 

"But fast I am growing in size and in strength, 
And the world shall acknowledge its wrong at 
length ! " 

His eyes wore a look that a limner might give 
To a Christ in the desert — full sensitive; 

And full of the wonder that filled the eyes 
Of Christ when he pondered earth's apathies. 

"Hope ever! the love which has long been mine, 
Returned with rich interest shall be thine ! " 

— Again fly the years : the hour is nigh ! 
But again there rises the selfsame cry, — 

"Oh wait, my dear mother! — if wait you can! — 
For what I have promised, — until I'm a man! 



*■ 



► «- 



Mother and Son. 101 

" Have patience ! the love which has long been 

mine, 
Returned with rich interest shall be thine. 

"With riches, with honor, with home, will I 
Thy slightest expression of want supply. 

" Men look with disdain on my aims and my 

hopes ; 
And steep are life's mountain and hill-side slopes : 

" But ever a beacon still beckons me on : — 
The faith of a father fulfilled in a son ! 

" Have patience ! the love which has long been 

mine, 
Returned with rich interest shall be thine." 

His brow wore a look — ah! had limner but 

known ! — 
Of a Christ in a Multitude walking alone ; 

And full of the wonder that filled the gaze 
Of Christ meeting scorn when he asked not for 
praise. 



io2 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

And ah ! how the years roll on apace ! 
And oh, how rapidly grows the trace 

On the brow of the mother, of want and woe ; 
And how bitter the pangs of poverty grow ! 

The child has at last arisen a man : 

But the struggle is hard for bread — for bran! 

And his promised bestowal of honor and pelf — 
Has shrunk to a battle for bread for himself ! 

The woman toils on; — as for twenty years 
She already has done through hopes and fears. 

But her heart is wondering, "Where is the end?" 
Though the man cries, " Surely it must amend ! 

"O wait, my dear mother! — if wait you can! — 
No toil ever ended ere yet it began ! 

" Have patience ! the love which has long been 

mine, 
Returned with rich interest shall be thine. 



Mother and Son. 103 

" No promise than this I am able to give ; 
For life, I have found, is but toiling to live ! 

"But wait, my dear mother! — the future yet 
May garlands of roses and laurel beget!" 

His brow wore a look that a limner might crave : 
Of unmerited obloquy patient and brave ; 

Eyes full of the sadness a life of woe 
Had graven the Nazarene's brow below ; 

And full of the pain that earth's infamy 
Made once to o'erflow in Gethsemane. 

"But wait, my dear mother! — the future yet 
May garlands of roses and laurel beget ! " 

— So years wung on — and the laurel came! 

But it bloomed on a grave without stone or name. 

In its arms of earth the grave holds fast 
The remains of lives and hopes long past. 



104 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

The mother and son together are laid : 

Their struggle for life has at last been stayed. 

Bravely they acted their wearisome part, 

The world looking on without thought or heart. 

Perchance in a different world and sphere 

A wealth they enjoy which they never had here. 

Perchance in its arms the grave holds not 
Aught but the shame which should be forgot ! 

In a sphere beyond this world of Time, 
Their lives perchance may be sublime. 

— Ah well! to us all, vain hopes arise, 
And float, mere phantoms, before our eyes. 

How oft is our wail, " O wait, my soul, 

And Love shall be thine as the seasons roll ! " 

And ever the years sound back the cry, — 
"No city we have but is built on high!" 



■►« 



Mother and Son. 105 

Not in this world — ah no! not here 
Is the glad fruition of hope and fear. 

But the life now lived is not Life at all : 
It is merely to Life the entrance-hall. 

Life is begun, and only begun, 

When men with a shudder have called it Done ! 

In a sphere beyond this world of Time, 
Men's lives perchance shall be sublime.* 



* "Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good 

things, 
And likewise Lazarus evil things : 
But now he is comforted." — Luke xvi : 25. 



****• 



►<- 



io6 Holiday Id/esse, Etc. 



THE LOVED ONES WHO HAVE LEFT US. 

Tt tjjTELTS TOV favTO. /MTU TUV VtHipC)V , - 

ovk iariv (j(5e, dW r/ye/jdr/. 
Luke xxiv, 5. 

Where are the friends, — the loved ones who hav r e 
left us? — 

Who outward with the tide, 
The while we mourn the fate that hath bereft us, 

Have vanished from our side ? 

Within the dull cold earth, perchance, their bodies ; 

Or low beneath the sea : 
But Yonder, — upward, — where the light and God 
is, 

Their souls rest peacefully ! 

No more among the dead we seek the living! 
But thither in the air 



The Loved Ones who have Left us. 107 

We rise on wings of faith, with glad thanksgiving, 
And view our loved ones there ! 

As once of old the Jews on Olive Mountain 

With eager, wistful eye 
Gazed up to view of life the Lord and Fountain, 

And saw Him in the sky, — 

So we, with hearts at ease and touched with glad- 
ness, 

No more bemoan the tomb, 
But view it void and empty of its sadness, 

Despoiled of death and gloom. 

There is no Death ! At most there is but parting : 

And parted ones may meet ! 
Life's separated arches, newly starting, 

Shall one day stand complete ! 

No more among the dead we seek the living : 

But upward in the air 
We rise on wings of faith, with glad thanksgiving, 

And view our loved ones there ! 



► -*- 



io8 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

What sailor knows, beneath the wave he lies on, 

The secrets of the sea ? 
Who fathoms Time, beyond the dim horizon 

That bounds Eternity? 

Who knows the depths of the Eternal Spaces ? 

The course the comets run ? 
Who knows what light illuminates men's faces 

Beyond the moon and sun ? 

Daily we wonder what they may be doing 

In that fair heaven afar : 
Nor deem we that their steps are but pursuing 

The space from star to star. 

Love, labor, progress! — this the constant story 

That God in Nature speaks : 
Love, labor, progress! — this the tireless glory 

Of the Eternal weeks ! 

"What! know ye not that hitherto my Father 
Hath worked, and I too work?" — 

No dull Forgetfulness, where angels gather 
In yonder Heaven may lurk ! 



■* 



The Loved Ones who have Left us. 109 

"There will be Light!" — Still sounds the Voice 
Eternal. 

And aye the Light will be. 
New stars, new suns, new satellites supernal 

Blaze forth continually. 

Whose hands, it may be, clothe the high Sierras 

Of those new worlds with white ? 
Whose kindly fingers dissipate the terrors 

Of their Antarctic night ? 

Invention fails ; imagination falters ; 

We may not read the sky : 
But this we know : Anigh the heavenly altars, 

Affection cannot die ! 

They love us still ! the beautiful and tender ! 

Who early, one by one, 
Have fled earth's darkness for supernal splendor, 

Earth's shadows for the sun ! 

They love us still ! and with each swift pulsation 
With which they speed the air, 



■* 



1 1 o Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

Let fall upon the waiting, wide creation 
A wealth of love and prayer. 

They know the sad, despairing hour of Sorrow, 

That weighs the heart with woe, — 
And whisper softly of a sure To-morrow, 

When tears shall cease to flow. 

They know the pain, the poverty, the parting ; 

The dull and aching heart ; 
The quivering lip, the tear-drop at its starting; — 

They share of these a part. 

They know our sins ! They see in secret places 

The hidden lust and pride ! — 
What wonder if at times they veil their faces, 

And turn with tears aside ! 

They know the weakening hour, the wild tempta- 
tion ; 

They bid Despair revive : 
They fight anew the host of hell's legation ; 

They save the soul alive. 



-►« 



The Loved Ones who have Left us. i 1 1 



O Angel-Sisters! have us in your keeping! 

We know ye are not dead ! 
We know our hearts might hear, were they not 
sleeping, 

Your pinions overhead ! 

Angel-Mothers ! beautiful as Morning, 
And brighter than the Day ! 

Our earthly doubts with heavenly grace adorning, 
Ye steal our hearts away ! 

But on my listening ear the mournful chiming 

Of midnight bells doth rise; — 

1 cease the labored dissonance of rhyming, 
And leave you in the skies ! 

But ah ! the separation is but seeming ! 

I know ye still are there ! 
I sleep ! and on triumphant wing, while dreaming, 

I join you in the air! 



Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



AN ANSWER. 



They know the pain, the poverty, the parting ; 

The dull and aching heart ; 
The quivering lip, the tear-drop at its starting ;- 

They share of these a part. 

— See ante. 



It has by some been asked of me, 

"Why thus I wrote ? " and "If I meant,- 
If measured, — in its full intent, 

The thought they deemed a fallacy?" 

I would not be misunderstood : 

I weighed the words, whate'er I said, 
About the dear ones we call dead, 

About their influence for good. 

It cannot be that those we love, 
If knowing all the pain and fear 
And sorrow that beset us here, 

Are happy, in the home above ? 



An Answer. 113 

We are not happy when we see 
Around us sorrow, pain, and sin?- — 
The wave that gulfs the sailor in 

Gulfs other hearts as hopelessly ? 

The fever that its heat allays 
Only by draining dry the blood, 
Drains also dry the feverish flood 

That in the watcher's pulses plays ? 

The crimes that cause the soul to start ; 

That cause the over wise to see 

Depravity's totality 
Kmbound in every human heart; — 

Youth's wanton seed, whose ripening grain 
Shall grind to bread of tears and groans ; 
The secret sins that gnaw the bones 

.And eat the nerves that feed the brain ; — 

The petty thirst for public place ; 

The pride of power, the lust of wealth, 
That stay at loss of name nor health, 

And laugh at laws with wise grimace; — ' 



X 



ii4 Holiday Id! esse. Etc. 

We are not happy when we see 
Around us sorrows, sins, like these ? 
Alas ! nor power himself to please 

Had he who walked in Galilee : 

Yet looking evil through and through 
He saw the good that lay concealed, 
The good to others unrevealed, 

And in the false beheld the true. 

So they, our friends! — (thus runs my dream,) — 
Whose vision has been cleared to see, 
Behold, where we obscurity, 

The things that are, not those which seem. 

The breeze that over Calvary blew, 

And caught the Sufferer's tender prayer, 
Still breathes and echoes in the air, 

"Forgive! they know not what they do!" 

Who then will say that men should mourn, 
And mourn -as one without a hope, 
When, falling on the upward slope, 

They seem like dead leaves downward borne? 



F, ^ 

.-/// Answer. 115 



Who constant mount are not the men 
Who know the nobleness of life ; 
But they who beauty learn through strife, 

And they who fall to rise again. 

With clearer eyes than eyes of earth, 
The spirits of our dear ones dead 
In these our days discomforted 

Behold our other, better birth. 

And still my heart would fondly pray, 
" Know me, my sister, know me still ! 
Know me, dear friend, through good and ill, 

Through doubt and dark, to perfect day." 



-Hc»3|e<- 



► «- 



1 1 6 Holiday Id less e, Etc. 



I 



GONE. 

From my sleep I start, and gaze without. 
What is this load — -this load of doubt — 
This weight, that presses so hard and deep 
Upon my heart that I cannot sleep ? 
That presses so hard — with such a heat — 
That my burning heart will scarcely beat ? 

Sunk is the star that beckoned me on ! 

She whom I loved is gone, is gone ! 

I gaze from my window — I gaze on high : 

Coldly the moon slants down the sky — 

Cold as the cold and icy weight 

That lies in the Valley Desolate — 

That lies in the valley of death and gloom 

Where earth for its beautiful bride made room. 

Sunk is the star that beckoned me on ! 

She whom I loved is gone, is gone ! 



>•« 



Gone. 1 1 7 

Faint on my bed falls the light of stars : 
Red at the door of his tent stands Mars — 
Red as the lurid light that throws 
Vesuvius' shade on Italian snows. 

— Faintly it falls on her lowly mound, 
And reddens the landscape all around. 

Sunk is the star that beckoned me on ! 
She whom I loved is gone, is gone ! 

O what to my heart remains of good ! 

— I mind that when last by her side I stood, 
She pointed her finger — she pointed high: 
"I die," she murmured, "yet shall not die!" 
That finger uplifted I still can see ; 

And it beckons, eternally beckons to me. 
She whom I loved — ah no! not gone! 
The star that once beckoned still beckons me 
on ! 



*!••:••!> 



4- 



1 1 8 Holiday Jdlesse, Etc 



A CANE FROM GETHSKMANE. 

A simple cane is here, — a pilgrim start": 

Yet on its polished face, 
In quaintly graven Hebrew paragraph, 

A sacred name I trace. 

"Gethsemane. — Mount Olivet." The phrase 

Bespeaks the favored earth 
Where, ages since, — in unremembered days, — 

Its sacred tree had birth. 

A traveler brought it — fragrant with the air 

Of that clear Syrian sky. 
" Here, friend," he said, "the staff is yours ; you care 

For such things more than I." 

I hold it in my hand, as here I sit, 
And musing close my eye : 



A Cane from Gethsemane. 119 

And far and fast doth subtle Fancy flit, 
Imagination fly. 

Beneath the swaying bough from which was plucked 

The olive cane I hold, 
Dark Hebrew boys have played, and, playing, sucked 

Its fruit times manifold. 

In shorn Gethsemane, even to this day, 

Is shown the grotto wild 
Where Abraham prepared the wood to slay 

Isaac his first-born child. 

Here David, harp in hand, from yonder hills 

His native Bethlehem nigh, 
Oft wandered with his sheep, the rippling rills 

And quiet waters by, 

And rested, sweeping with his hand the strings 

Melodious with praise, — 
Laying his head upon these rootlets' rings, 

Lit by the sun's last rays ! 



120 • Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

Here Solomon had come, with timbrels, flutes, 

And cymbals clashing loud ; 
With solemn sackbuts, fifes, and silvery lutes, 

In royal garments proud ; 

With damsels rich in dyes from Tyrian shore ; 

Playing at games of chance ; 
Laughing to see upon the leafy floor 

The Jewish maidens dance. 

Here Philip's son, great Alexander, came, 

His hands with slaughter wet, 
And bowed himself before the jeweled flame 

Of priestly coronet. 

The god of Macedon was Mars the Red, 

His empire on increase : 
The God of Shiloh's olives, overhead, 

Here gently whispered, "Peace!" 

Here Jesus, Joseph's son, a mightier King, 

Weighed down with woes of men, 
Came praying he perchance their lives might bring 

To God and heaven again. 



A Cane from Gethse7nane. 1 2 1 

Here too, while his disciples slept, he sweat 

As it were drops of blood ; — 
His brow, in agony, already wet 

With Friday's crimson flood. 

And here the angel came, in raiment white, 

To strengthen him and bless, 
Making a Bethel of the darksome night, 

And joy of his distress. 

Here Judas, jeering, brought the priestly crowd 
With lanterns, swords and staves, — 

His thirty silver pieces jingling loud 
And murmuring " Paupers' graves ! " 

Here Titus came ! and with his army vast 

Uprooted every tree. 
Thy glory then, Jerusalem, was past! 

And thine, Gethsemane ! 

But ere that fatal hour, the cane I hold 

Was plucked from off its tree, 
And down through monkish cloisters dim and old 

At last has come to me. 



122 Holiday Idlcssc, Etc. 

This very bough, perhaps, its portion gave 

For Abraham's altar-fire, 
When sadly building — deeming nought could save — 

His first-born's funeral-pyre. 

This very bough — who knows? — the bough may 
be 

That sheltered David's lambs ; 
Beneath which Solomon, the Wise, in glee 

Made puns and epigrams ; 

That Alexander bowed beneath ; that he 

Of Nazareth sought for prayer ; 
That angels' pinions brushed ; that treachery 

Sought out and made a snare ! 

O sacred bough ! from thy long history 

Some lesson I would learn ! 
Would that from thee some heavenly mystery 

Within my soul might burn ! 



Kalligo. 



KALLIGO. 

[See Note at end of volume.] 
I. PRELUDE. 

In that wonderful land of the river St. John's, 
First known to the Spanish Hidalgos and Dons 

Who followed Leone to its flowery coast 
In search of new wealth and perpetual youth, 
Lie hid in its deserts of tropical growth 

Full many a marvel and many a boast. 

But not Ocklawaha, that marvelous stream 
Whose verdurous banks seem the breath of a 
dream, 

Nor ancient Magnolia's health-haunted spring, 
Nor aught of the forest's perennial bloom, 
Might furnish a tale of so sombre a gloom 

As that which the Floridan cypresses sing. 



*■ 



124 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

I stood on the bounds of a mighty morass ; 
And round me while glimmered the quivering glass 

Of the turbulent waters, there came to my ear 
A wail for the lost ones its jungles amid,- - 
A wail for the desolate ones who are hid 

In its innermost recesses year upon year. 

From Mexico's gulf, to the northernmost strand 
Where booms the Atlantic on Floridan sand, 

Is heard from the forest its mournful lament. 
Rare blossoms may bloom in the middle-land 

maze, 
And sunbeams may dance where the pelican 
plays, 
But naught of its dirge doth the woodland re- 
lent. 

Perchance in the wilds of the Maranon isle, 
Or far in the jungles of Congo or Nile, 

Lie phantasies hid which mankind never sees. 
But he who would learn of the Floridan's haunt, 
Or seek the sonata the cypresses chant, 

May hear the weird anthem in every breeze. 



Kalligo. 125 



II. KALLIGO. 

On the half-submerged edge of the Kalligo Swamp, 
Whose tropical gorgeur would rival the pomp 

Of ancient Assyria's purple day, 
An aged man, in the garb of the poor, 
Stood silently kneeling beside the door 

Of a hut long ruined and gone to decay. 

The silver of seventy besprinkled the hair 
Of the Florida Cracker — whose simplified air 

Bespoke him of nature as rough and uncouth 
As ever a man in the bush may become 
When wifeless and childless and lacking a home. 

Yet full in his eye shone the fire of truth. 

His form was as bent as the gnarled cypress trunk 
Which lay at his feet — like a fugitive monk 

Escaped from its cloister amid the morass. 
His brow to the evening breeze lay bare, 
And tremblingly murmuring a prayer 

His heart showed clear as a crystal glass. 



*F 



126 Holiday fd/esse, Etc. 

High over his head, through the cypress boughs 
Which stretched o'er the hut where he muttered 
his vows, 

The on-rushing wind soughed harshly and cold ; 
And the wild-hanging mosses, thick fluttering down, 
So madly and fierce by the storm were blown 

That it seemed some terrible tale they told. 

The hut, like the owner, was tottering fast: 
Through hardly the oncoming gust could it last 

If kind should not blow the encompassing gale. 
The mammoth- built chimney stood leaning awry; — 
Propped up by frail timbers which kept it on high 

It soon must succumb should the tempest assail. 

A back-ground of forest lent shade to the scene, — 
A forest the dankest of forests terrene, 

And filled with the noisomest vapors and gloom. 
Dead trunks and dry branches swayed sighing in 

pain, 
Enrobed in thick moss as with verdure again ; 
Enwrapped as in grave-clothes and waiting the 
tomb. 



-►H 




"The hut, like the owner, was tottering fast." 

— Page 126. 



Kalligo. 1 2 7 

The giant palmetto and cypress were there, 
O'erhung by wild parasites blossoming fair, 

And draped with the trumpet-vine's scarlet ar- 
ray. 
Here petals of purple convolvulus twined; 
There picturesque chaplets of white interjoined, 

Grotesque in their glory and gorgeously gay. 

On many a marvel which Nature discloses 
Man's eye never looks, and the daintiest roses 
Bloom wild where his footsteps may never have 
stirred. 
Here blooming and blushing, forever in prime, 
Untouched by decay in a century's time, 

Were splendors unknown but to reptile and 
bird. 

Unseen by man's eye, and untouched by his hand, 
Lie treasures unnumbered awaiting command, 

If only his heart and his will say the word. 
With noble realities life is replete : 
But he who may seek them with wandering feet 

Shall never earth's best benediction have heard. 



►<- 



Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



in. 



Wild, wild, through the forests of Kalligo Swamp 
The winds in the thickly-hung foliage romp, 
And sigh through the groins and the aisles of 
the trees. 
The snake-bird and buzzard, the vampire and bat 
Whirr frighted from branches where croaking they 
sat, 
Intermingling their cries with the murmuring 
breeze. 

The waters roll darkly and sullenly back ; 
The deadly-toothed moccasin turns in its track 

And spits out its venom at rustling leaves. 
The Floridan hermit still kneels, at his prayer — 
His brow to the evening breeze yet bare, 

His accents like rustle of whispering sheaves. 

High over his head, through the cypress boughs 
Which stretched o'er the hut where he muttered 
his vows, 
The on-rushing wind soughed harshly and cold ; 



*■ 



►* 



Kalligo. 129 

And the wild-hanging mosses, thick fluttering down, 
So madly and fierce by the storm were blown, 
That it seemed some terrible tale they told. 

But never a thought to the wind's wild wail 
Gave the desolate Cracker. With fervency pale 

He poured out his soul in so mystic a prayer, 
So mournful and strange, so pathetic and weird, 
That a listener hearing would doubt what he heard 

As a man would doubt music if heard in the 



Like cords on his brow purple veins were dis- 
tended ; 
Long nervously clinched, till his anthem was ended, 

His fingers convulsively, tremblingly, twitched. 
Weird chorus the elements wailed to his prayer, 
And wildly the paroquet screamed in the air, 

Its plumage with gold and with green enriched. 

O ye of the cities and sunlight ! whose years 
Have a thought for the lost of far hemispheres! 
Whose hearts have a throb for earth's desolate 
ones ! — 

9 



130 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

Perchance in the Florida Cracker's lament 
Some thought ye may find of increasing content 
With temperate skies and less tropical suns. 



IV. 



"Thou God!" Thus the desolate hermit began; — 
And call nor entreaty from wearier man 

E'er fled from the earth to find voice at the 
Throne. 
"I fain from my bosom my burden would fling: 
But vainly I mourn in my suffering, 

And vainly I grope for a Hand in my own ! 

" Thou knowest that never, for twenty long 

years, 
Has aught of affection found voice in my ears, 

Or wife or a friend had a home in my heart. 
My Lucy, she fled from her prison of clay 
Full twenty long Summers ere dawn of to-day; 

And Harry, my oldest, fell dead from his cart. — 



►£< ► 

Kalligo. 131 

"He drove, down below here, the ferryman's team, 
Transporting such tourists from river to stream 

As searched for adventure in swamp and morass. 
But one day his horses proved frantic and wild, 
And down in the cypress-woods murdered my child 

By flinging him fierce on the stone-stubbled grass. 

"Men had told me no likelier lad than my Harry 
Was known in the country. They said he could 
carry 

His head with the highest and noblest if he 
Would go with them North to some city or town 
Which they mentioned as being a place of renown. — 

But Harry, poor boy! to the town preferred me. 

"They said he was handsome! — Ah, nobody needs 
To tell a fond father what he himself heeds 
A thousand times better than they — than all 
others ! 
And if he was handsome, that wasn't the whole : — 
For Harry was handsome in heart too, and soul ! 
And nobler to me than most boys to their 
mothers. 



► «<- 



132 Holiday Id/esse, Etc. 

"Just twenty he was, when they killed him — those 

horses ! 
And tender and trusting as if all the forces 

Of Nature for years had been waiting his coming, — 
Awaiting his coming, and gladly preparing 
Her purest and best, and with him at last sharing 
Them all — all the graces she long had been 
summing. 

"Then Robert — poor Robert! Or dead or alive 
I never have heard from him since he was five ! 

Some vagabond stole him away from me — God! 
It killed his poor mother — my Lucy, my wife. 
She was weakly before, and this ended her life. 

She lingered a year or two — yonder's her sod. 

" If Robert 's alive now, he 's thirty, poor boy ! 

Perhaps it was well for him ! little of joy 

Or of happiness he would have known here with 
me! 
I hope he's a man who would scorn to do wrong — 
Not thoughtless, and hurried away with the throng. 

Perhaps he's a scholar — a parson, may be! 



►H- 



Kalligo. 133 

"I would have liked one of my babies to be 
Of use in upraising the world a degree ! — 

His mother and I often talked of it so. 
We had heard that a parson was one who in time 
Would come to a place they called ' Heaven,' and 
'a clime 
Where Love reigned,' — and we wished our poor 
Bobbie might go ! 

"The parson who chanced at my hovel one day 
As down the lagoon he had happened to stray 
With friends who were seeking adventure and 
mirth, — 
That parson, he told of a home in the sky 
Where all, who were willing, when called on to 
die, 
Should find the sweet rest they had ne'er found 
on earth. 

"He spoke of a Father who cared for us all! 
Of One who to earth came poor sinners to call 
To a feast which He said should in heaven be 
spread. 



4- 



134 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

'Above in the house of my Father,' said He, 
'Are mansions unnumbered preparing for thee, 
Where ne'er shall be hunger, nor darkness, nor 
dread.' 

" ' No darkness, no dying, but Infinite Good ! ' — 
So ended the minister Here in the wood 

For seventy-odd years I have lived in the dark! 
In the dark, O my God ! for these seventy years, 
Encompassed by deaths, doubts, and longings and 
fears, — 

Nor once in the night met a luminous spark! 

"For years at a time I have scarce seen a face. 
I have heard in the world there is many a place 

Where people are living encompassed by joy. 
Here ignorance, blindness, despair abound 
Through long generations If Robert has found 

A more sun-lit abode, I thank heaven, poor boy! 

"The parson seemed happy. His face, like a dream 
Of deepest content, was illumed by a gleam 
That must have been shot from the heavenly Day 



*■ 



Kalligo. 135 

Of which he was herald — a radiant glow! 

But alas ! his companions were eager to go, — 
They were waiting, — I dared not beseech him 
to stay. 

" It was only a day or two back that he 

called. .... 
In pain from my hovel to-night I have crawled 
To meet him again — for he said he would 

come ! 
He knew I was sick — knew perhaps I would die 
In a month or two more — and the gleam in his 

eye 
Was as kind as my Bobbie's would be if at 

home ! 

"And I thought, when he stood by my side, and 

his hand 
Held tenderly over my forehead the band 

Which he moistened and folded, all fragrant and 

cool — 
That he looked as my Bobbie would look in his 

place ! 



136 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

And I felt a hot something fall full on my face 
As he said 'though as scarlet' and 'whiter than 
wool.' 

" But he'll not be in time — I am weaker to- 
night 

He said I would meet her again, in the light — 

My Lucy ! and them, too, my boys that are 

dead ! 

The winds bellow hoarsely — the forest-trees crack. 
Robert ! Robert ! come back to your father ! come 

back ! 

O God ! what is this that my frenzy has said ! 

" O Father of Love ! from thy throne in the 

sky ! 

If one so untutored and simple as I 

May hope to partake of the joys of thy Home, 
I pray that the peace which thy promise has given 
May one day be mine in that infinite Heaven 
To which thou hast called us in kindness to 
come ! " 



-►-« 



Kalligo. 137 



v. 



Wild, wild, through the forests of Kalligo Swamp 
The winds in the thickly-hung foliage romp, 
And sigh through the groins and the aisles of 
the trees. 
The Florida Cracker still kneels — but his prayer 
At last is complete, and his silvery hair 

Falls damp on a forehead bowed low to his 
knees ! 

The winds bellow hoarsely — the forest-trees crack. 
The on-swooping tempest — fierce, furious, black — 
With the hermit's last words strikes the frailly- 
built hut! 
He moves not nor struggles — though low at his 

feet 
With a crash falls the hut in wild ruin com- 
plete 

His eyes on earth's tempests forever are shut. 



1 38 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

Away on the wings of the gale blew the dust 
Upraised by the wind in the lumber and rust. 
And away on the wings of fair spirits out- 
spread, 
To the limitless realms of the ocean of air, 
Sped the soul of the Cracker — what voice shall 

say where ? 

Sadly, sadly the cypress moaned dirge for the 
dead. 



VI. 



When the sun the next morning, red, lurid, and 

hot, 
Rose flinging a luminous glare on the spot, 
The party of tourists who shortly before 
Had called at the place, here again had arrived, — 
And with them the one whose kind office had 
shrived 
(As it proved) the lone Cracker now dead on 
the shore. 



►«■ 



Kalligo. 139 

Through the swamp wildly rushing, they came as 

in haste, 
Peering anxiously, wildly about, through the waste. 
"O my father! my father! " the minister cried. — 
It was Robert! the Cracker's son Robert in- 
deed 

" O my father ! — too late have I come for thy 
need ? 
Would God, O my father, for thee I had died ! " 

In the swamp he had met with a stranger, who 

said, — 
"You are Robert. Your father has mourned you 

as dead. 
When a boy you were stolen away to the 

North." 
Though the storm had impeded — back, back 

through the brake, 
Through the swamp, to the hut on the edge of 

the lake, 
The son hastened quickly But life had gone 

forth. 



140 Holiday fdlesse, Etc. 



VII. 



With the dawn of the morning the tempest had 

ceased. 
In a plot of fair lawn, with its head to the 

east, — 
Where the sun first should strike when it 

rose, — a rude grave 
Was dug by the minister's friends for the dead. 
And a boat, with sad garlands of cypress o'er- 

spread, — 
A rude funeral-barge, — bore the corse o'er the 

wave ; 



O'er the wave, through long watery alleys of 

trees ; 
Under thick-hanging mosses soft-swung by the 

breeze ; — 
From the storm-shattered hovel where sorrow 

had been, 



■* 



Kalligo. 141 

To the low narrow grave roughly dug in the sod; — 
To the bosom of earth and the bosom of God. 

And the son returned North, life anew to 

begin. 

Life anew to begin, — with a weight in his heart: 
With a wail in his ears that would never depart — 

A wail as of forests when tempests are nigh, 
The murmur of waters in madding unrest, 
The wraith-mocking rustle, despairing, unblest, 

Of wild-hanging mosses fierce-blown to the sky. 



VIII. 



1 stood on the bounds of a mighty morass ; 
And round me while glimmered the quivering- 
glass 
Of the turbulent waters, there came to my ear 



142 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

A wail for the lost ones its jungles amid, — 
A wail for the desolate ones who are hid 
In its innermost recesses year upon year. 

From Mexico's gulf, to the northernmost strand 
Where booms the Atlantic on Floridan sand, 

Is heard from the forest its mournful lament. 
Rare blossoms may bloom in the middle-land 

maze, 
And sunbeams may dance where the pelican 
plays, 
But naught of its dirge doth the woodland re- 
lent. 

Perchance in the wilds of the Maranon isle, 
Or far in the jungles of Congo or Nile, 

Lie phantasies hid which mankind never sees. 
But he who would learn of the Floridan's haunt, 
Or seek the sonata the cypresses chant, 

May hear the weird anthem in every breeze. 



*z- 



4 



« H 

Meteors. 143 



METEORS. 

LOriginally printed as ' Proem" to Kai.ligo.] 

I sit in the gloom 
Of my evening room 

On the hill-top high, and gaze on the tomb 
Of darkness which covers earth's beauty and 
bloom. 

O'er the river's gray track 
Rise the hill-slopes black, — 

Like peddlers, each holding a house for a pack, — 
Or like Atlas of old, with the town on their 
back ! 

In the Northern sky, 

From their throne on high, 

Fair meteors flash on the wondering eye, 

And fall into darkness, and fail and die : 



144 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

Fall suddenly down, 

With the gleam of a crown, 

To fade in the mists and the shadows brown 

Which hazily hang over Medford town ! 

The villagers sleep : 

Over valley and steep 

Not a household light breaks the darkness deep. 

The pale stars only their vigils keep. 

But look ! through the night, 

(Where a meteor bright 

Just vanishing seemed to fall in its flight,) 

There shines in a window a warning light ! — 

A scintillant glare, 

Rich, luminous, rare, — 

As if when the meteor vanished in air 

It charmed a new star into radiance there ! 

— O soul of mine ! 
When the Angel Divine 



Sweet -Brier Roses. 



145 



Shall summon thee swift to a region benign — 
Shall summon thee swift, and thou follow his sign, 

Thou wouldst not ask more 

Than some heart on life's shore 

Grow bright with a gleam of thy vanishing lore — 

Grow bright with a lustre undreamed of before ! 



SWEET-BRIER ROSES. 



One morning, at a Poet's door, — 
Dark-curtained by a sycamore, — 
Came gently knocking 
(As of cradle rocking 
E'er so lightly on a sanded farm-house floor,) 
A fair-haired, thoughtful visitor — a lovely maiden. 
10 



►H- 



*■ 



146 



Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



As waiting at the door she stood, 
Her hands caressed in graceful mood 
A bunch of posies — 
Mostly Sweet-Brier Roses ; 
By her discovered deep in yonder wood, 
And with sweetest summer fragrance redolently 
laden. 



"I bring them for the Poet, sir!" 
Such the maiden's accents were; — 
While so surprising 
Were her words, that rising 
To his lips the Poet felt no answering stir. 
Yet bent he forward, fearful the sweet vision 
losing. 

"I bring them, sir, — the first this year, — 
In thanks for words of earnest cheer 

By you bespoken ! — 

An unworthy token 



►H- 



Sweet -Brier Roses. 147 

They may seem, yet sprinkled are they by the 
tear 
Which joyful fled my eyes the while your verse 
perusing." 



in. 

" Thou maiden fair ! " the Bard replied, 
As he her grateful offering eyed, — 
" No praise e'er dearer 
To my heart came nearer 
Than these fragrant flowers thy tears have sanc- 
tified ! 
Thine offering I accept with joy of great thanks- 
giving. 

"One hope to human heart to bring, — 
One saddened soul to cause to sing, 

However lowly 

If in accents holy, — 
This is greater crown than ever graced a king. 
Methinks for this alone one's life is worth the 



* 



148 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



" Emblem of Sympathy, ' tis said, 

The Sweet-Brier Rose uplifts its head. — 

And for a mortal 

To approach the portal 
Of the human heart, and, listening, hear a tread 
Of sympathy in echo to his own, is greatest glory. 

" And so, thou maiden, for these flowers 
I thank thee ! They in weary hours 
Shall oft enchant me, 
And their memory haunt me 
Like remembrance of the Springtime's welcome 
showers. 
Than this thy gift none greater e'er was known in 
song or story ! " 



— O Bard! thou hast not said in vain! 
Than this the maiden's glad refrain 



Sweet -Brier Roses. 149 

Thy best endeavor 
Could from man nor ever 
Call a sweeter, grander, more mellifluous strain. 
One soul at least thy songs have led to Faith's 
glad fountain ! 

Nor greater praise e'er Poe*t had! 
Nor gold nor pearls could to it add ! — 
More blest beatitude 
Of answering gratitude 
Could ne'er be whispered thee from heart made 
glad 
Through treading in thy footsteps up the Muses' 
Mountain. 
1876. 






►«■ 



150 Holiday fdlesse, Etc. 



MOONLIGHT ON COLLEGE HILL. 

Mid-Summer, 1879. 

The hour is late : 

Borne up by the weight 

Of the sun as it sank through its western gate, 

The moon, compassionate, calm, sedate, 

Has risen in glee 

From the eastern sea, — 

And now with the stars holds jubilee 

On the high wide floor of Immensity. 

The light winds soar, 

Now higher, now lower : 

"Come hither," they call to me, o'er and o'er, 

"And wander with us on the reservoir!" 

I wander — and gaze; 
And the light wind plays 



■4* 



Moonlight on College Hill. 151 

With the level waters, and shivers the rays 
That whirl on the surface like fugitive fays. 

The undulant ground 

For miles around, — 

Rock, river, and valley, and meadow and mound, — 

Is lit by the moon with light profound. 

Each star- ray stains 

A myriad vanes, 

And the moonlight gleams on the college panes 

Like dew on the grass after summer rains. 

The river below 

Is white as snow, 

And over its tide, as the zephyrs blow, 

Broad ripples of silvery frost-work go. 

Far down the stream, 

With a glow and gleam, 

The harbor shines, till its waters seem 

Like a jasper wall in a Patmian dream. 



152 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

There bridges four, 

Time-shaken and hoar, 

Float trembling above the river's roar, 

And fade in the gloom of the farther shore. 

There, too, go the ships 

Between the slips, 

With fire outborne from their blackened lips, 

Like dragons in some Apocalypse. 

At the foot of the Hill, 

White, lonely, and still, — 

Its silence reechoing, wild and shrill, 

The wail of the plaintive whip-poor-will, — 

The powder-house stands, 

O'erlooking the lands 

Where Washington toiled with his patriot bands, 

And threw up redoubts with his own white hands. 

And here is the road 

Where the steed once strode, — 



Moonlight on College Hill. 153. 

The moon still gleaming as then it glowed 
Though the tide of a hundred years has flowed, — 

On which Paul Revere, 

In hope and fear, 

Rode sounding aloud in the nation's ear 

The knell of the British grenadier ! 

In my walk I stay, 

And the scene survey 

With a startled eye ! for I hear a sway 

As of hurrying hoof-beats faij away ! 

But I listen again : 

And my ears attain 

No sound but the sudden and sad refrain, 

And the patter and splash, of summer rain : 

As up from the west, 

At the storm's behest, 

Dark shadows rise wild o'er the landscape's breast, 

Blotting moon, river, harbor, and all the rest! 



n 

154 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 



•>< 



BODY AND SPIRIT. 

October, 1881. 

The fair October sky is clear, 
The summer haze has fled ; 

The glory of the woods is near, 
The maple's leaves are red. 

The cloudless morning sun is mild, 
The fern its fragrance yields. 

"Come out into the woods, my child, 
Come out into the fields ! " 

'T is thus I hear my mother speak, — 

My mother, Nature dear; 
And while her breezes fan my cheek 

I linger still to hear. 

"These perfect days were never meant 
For toil of hand or brain," — 



Body and Spirit. 155 

But made to roam the continent, 
Or sail the misty main. 

"The world is too much with us," — Yea, 

For all men but a few 
Earth's toil and strain from day to day 

Is life's sole residue ! 

God ! for what the sun and sky ? 
For what the leafy wood? 

Will men forever live and die, 
And call the worse the good ? 

But ah! — myself — myself am bound 
Within the city's moil ! 

1 cannot break, myself, the round 
Of endless daily toil ! 

In vain the crimson sumach rears 

For me its plumes of red. 
And while I toil, — 'mid blinding tears, — 

The aster's gold is dead ! 



* 

156 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

Ah well ! my mind is still my own ; 

My heart no fetters gyve : 
My soul is monarch of a throne 

Which through all years shall thrive. 

To toil my body Fate may urge — 

But unconfined and free 
My spirit roams the mountain's verge, 

And sails the sun-lit sea. 



MYSTIC RIVER. 

O miniature river ! winding free 
Through widening meadows to wider sea, 
Beautiful, beautiful art thou to mc ! 



"* 



Mystic River. 157 



Men look on thy narrow wave, and laugh ! 

Little they know of the cup I quaff ! 
And what carest thou for their idle chaff ? 

Thou art narrow, and sluggish, and muddy oft, 
And thy margin is oozy, and low, and soft ; 
It is no wonder that men have scoffed : 

For men are thoughtless, through and through ; 
And men are idle and sluggish too, 
And they laugh at themselves when they laugh 
at you. 

Thou art wider at times — when the upward tide 
Brings a torrent of brine from the ocean's side, 
And seaweed and kelp on thy current glide. 

Then pleasure-barks on thy surface float ; 
And fair lips wreathe into joyous note 
While fair hands hasten each onward boat. 

Thou art wider still — when the tide comes in 
With a rush and a roar from the sea, and a din 
Like that on the beach when the storms begin. 



158 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

Then over thy wave the sea-gull dips, 

And screams to his fellows, while slowly drips 

The salt sea-spray from his pinions' tips ! 

And thou takest thy birth in lakes that are large, 
With villages fair on their prosperous marge, — 
And yet almost as lone as when swept by the 
barge 

Of the Indian hunters now lying asleep 

Where the willow bends low and the larches weep 

On the westering slopes of Walnut steep; — 

In lakes that are quiet and calm and still, 
Where the bobolink's laugh and the mavis' trill 
Reecho o'er forest and meadow and hill. 

But river ! if thou in thy breadth wert as great 
As the Stream of the South where it pours through 

the gate 
Of golden Brazil, and runs separate 

For leagues in the brine, ever fresh, ever pure ; 
If thou in precipitous depths didst endure 
Dark caverns and cliffs such as oceans immuce ; 



Mystic River. 159 

If thou in the circling embrace of thy banks 
Held gardens by hundreds, and castles in ranks, 
And vineyards like those in the land of the 
Francs ; 

If thou with Euphrates and Gihon didst run 

By the Garden of God, and didst mirror the sun 

As when first over Eden the dawn had begun; — 

Ev'n then thou couldst never peace richer impart, 
Nor ever be dearer, O stream, in my heart, 
Than thou in thy slumber and sluggishness art! 

For sacred to me, doubly, trebly, thy tide, 

For the friends now far-sundered and scattered 

world-wide 
With whom in my youth I have walked by thy 

side ! 



*f-H* 



160 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



BODILY WEARINESS. 
[on my birthday.] 

The sun is in the eastern sky, 

But I have journeyed far; 
And though not yet the dew is dry 

Or pale the morning star, 
Already, O my weary feet, 

Ye faint for home and rest ! 
Already, in the morning street, 

Ye look with longing west ! 

Above in yonder ether floats 
The waning crescent's gold ; 

Around me are the plaintive notes 
The robins sang of old. 

The sun will quench the lunar ray, 
The noon will hush the song : 



f 



Bodily Weariness. 161 

Such borrowed light seems mine to-day, 
Such notes to me belong. 

I dreamed till now the world was wide ; 

Its wealth I thought to win. 
But rivers roll on every side, 

And mountains hem me in. 
Like Rasselas, I pine for air; 

The valley range is small ; 
And shallow fissure here or there 

Reveals the rocky wall. 

I may not in the flesh ascend, — 

We have not wings to fly : 
But overhead blue arches bend, 

The iris spans the sky. 
Full soon, full soon, O fainting feet, 

Ye pant no more for rest ! 
To-morrow, in the twilight street, 

Ye turn to wander west ! 
1881. 

n 



* 



* 



1 62 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 



THE VIOLET. 

[Written immediately on awaking from a dream during 
which it seemed to me that I talked with the poet Words- 
worth as he was when a young man.] 

I met within the wilding wood 

A violet nodding in a dell : 
Its bud was blue, its stalk was green ; 

And now when I would tell 
The story of that simple flower 

There rises to my view 
A perfect picture of the scene, — 
The nodding violet's stalk of green, 

Its flower of lovely blue. 
In all the world were never seen 
A bluer blue, a greener green. 

I met within the city street 

A darling little blue- eyed girl: 
Her eye was bright, her step was light, 

And on her brow a curl 

4< 4« 



The Violet. 163 

Of fairest, purest gold hung free. 

With smiles she looked at me ! 
Her heart, dear girl ! was light as air, 
As free as air from sorrow. There 

Could never, surely, be 
A step more light, an eye more blue, 
A soul more innocent or true. 

A few short days — alas! alas! 

I met her in the street no more. 
I know not how it came to pass, 

But knocking at my door 
One evening, as I writing sat, 

Approached a little boy, — 
Her brother, — who beside my knee 
Bewailed and wept so piteously, 

That it would needs employ 
A power beyond my tenderest art 
To hush the turbulence of his heart. 

I clasped him in my close embrace ; 

His burning cheeks with tears were wet. 
To mine he raised his mournful face, — 

Ah! ne'er shall I forget 

» I< *U 



+x 



164 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

The hope, the doubt, the keen despair 

That mantled in his eye. 
"O sir!" I hear him importune, — 
"Dear sir! she will be better soon! 

Tell me she will not die ! " 
My heart could not deny the boon : — 
"Ah yes!" I said, "be better soon. 

1 hastened to the wilding wood, 



And sought the violet in the dell, 
Whose bud was blue, whose stalk was green. 

I hardly need to tell 
Upon whose breast, within whose hand, 

The flower was shortly seen. 
She on its petals looked, and smiled ; 
Upon the bud of blue, poor child ! 

And on the stalk of green. 
And then she closed her bright blue eyes, 
And flew afar to Paradise. 

Upon her breast, within her hand, 

The violet still was seen, — 
The violet with its bud of blue, 

Its stalk of brilliant green, — 



" I Dreamed last Night I was a Boy." 165 

When in her little grave she lay. 

I doubt not when in love 
The angels met her, and her eyes 
Beheld the blooms of Paradise, 

Were none more fair above ! 
Nor there in heaven might angels view 
A soul than hers more pure and true. 



"I DREAMED LAST NIGHT I WAS 
A BOY." 

I dreamed last night I was a boy! — 

A happy, daring boy again! 
Sharing the wanderings, the wild joy 
Of old companions! — all who now are men. 

Perfect the picture seemed to me, — 
The wide-roofed house of Gothic build, 



■*- 



4 



i66 



Holiday Idlesse, Etc 



"The Island," and "The old Oak-Tree," 
The widening forest, hare and partridge-filled. 

Charlie and Walter, Albert, Frank, — 

All were at hand, — and with them, I ! 
Sporting beside the well, where drank 
Many a traveler as he went by. 

How well I recognized the hat ! 

The striped trousers, soiled and torn! 
Wherein, within my dream, I sat, 
And whistled cheerily to greet the morn! 

My hair hung white upon my brow : 

I felt its tangled flaxen skein. — 
'Tis darker, thicker, browner, now; 
But ah! how soon it may be white again! 

We romped, it seemed to me, for hours ; 

And then for home! full boisterous! 

Bearing a bunch of wilding flowers 
For her, God bless her! who was All to us! 



* 



"I Dreamed last Night I was a Boy." 167 

The house was large and wide ; a wing 

Ran out into the orchard-blooms. — 
Plenty of space for rollicking 
Within those high, wide, memory-sacred rooms ! 

Upon the table now there stood 

A basket of ripe red-cheeked fruit. 
Ah no ! in city habitude 
Such apples ne'er have gratified my suit ! 

As I their luscious tints recall, 

And with them buds and murmuring bees, 
Upon my heart there seems to fall 
A vision fair — as of Hesperides ! 

Again I walk the dreamy maze 

Where clovers bloom beneath the trees ; 
And dreams of boyhood's buried days 
Recall glad visions of life's earlier ease. 

Yet never doth my heart repine, 

Or mourn the loss of vanished years. 



1 68 Holiday fdlesse, Etc. 

Still brightly, all along the line, 
Some glad aureola of light appears. 

I hold it is not true with all 

That boyhood's days are happiest : 
Faith, Hope and Love ne'er cease to call, 
And to the wise each present year is best. 

Ah no, my boyhood ! back again 

I would not call thee if I might. — 
Yet, solace for a weary brain ! 
Thou mayest come back to me in dreams of 
night ! 

Yet ev'n in sleep to me it seemed 

The pleasure still was tinged with pain. 
So, waking, I thanked God I dreamed, 
And rose with joy to manhood's toil again. 

Boston, 1880. 



***** 



* 



4- 



Rhobe. 169 



RHOBE. 



The key-note of the soul, — 
Whether of broken heart or whole, 
Whether of sinner upon earth 

Or saint in heaven ; 
Of him of lowly birth, 

Or him to whom 'tis given 
To unlock the mystery above, — 
The key-note of the soul is Love. 

Thus is the tale I bring, 
Thus is the unrhymed song I sing, 
A tale, a symphony of Love : 

Though blue waves deep 
Roll now where the lovers throve, 

And seaweeds shivering weep 
Along the strands and islet shores, 
While echoing the loud Ocean roars. 



170 



Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



-< 



PART FIRST. 

On the bosom of a mild and placid river, 
On the surface of the Kennebec's slow current, 
Slowly floating at the dawning of the morning, 
Slowly drifting with the shifting of the waters, 
Sailed the jaunty little sloop, the Little Ella. 

Happy burden bore the bark o'er the billows, — 
Happy bark, such a burden to be bearing ! 
For the hand upon the helm of the vessel 
Was the hand of a maiden rare and lovely, — 
Of the maiden called the Queen of all the River. 

Lightsome heart is thine own, O merry maiden, 
As thou singest in thy sailing o'er the waters ! 
Happy thoughts are thine own, lovely Rhobe, 
As thou thinkest of thy lover over yonder, 
As thou singest of his love and adoration ! 



Shall we listen, Rhobe ? shall we hear thine an- 
them ? — 
O that ours the madrigal, and we thine Albin ! 



Rhobe. 1 7 1 

O that love like thine, that true regard like 

Rhobe's, 
Had of old enchained men's hearts in garlands 

golden, 
That the world ere this had rightly known what 

Love is ! 



SONG. 



WHEN YOUNG HEARTS LOVE. 



Bright are earth's days, and glad earth's years, 
When young hearts love ! 
Many are joys, and few are fears, 
When young hearts love ! 
Nor aught the wide earth round, 
Unto its farthest bound, 
May equal the intense 
Unswerving vehemence 
Of faith, of truth, of innocence, of tears, 
When young hearts love ! 



>«- 



*■ 



172 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

Glad are the songs the angels sing, 
In realms above ! 
Merry the mock-bird's carolling, 
In southern grove ! 
But ne'er may seraph chant 
The Song of Covenant 
That bindeth twain in one, 
Or bird of southern sun 
Repeat the soul's glad triumphing, 
When young hearts love ! 



On the mast the folds of canvas, idly rustling, 
Murmured gladly an accompanying music 
To the words the maiden's ecstasy had uttered ; 
Gurgling softly where the boat-keel cut the water r 
Ocean's bosom gladly throbbed an answering echo. 

Lightsome heart indeed is thine, O merry maiden, 
As thou singest in thy sailing o'er the waters ! 
Happy thoughts in truth are thine, lovely Rhobe, 
As thou thinkest of thy lover over yonder, 
As thou singest of his love and adoration. 



■* 



Rhobe. 173 

But why sailest thou so early in the morning ? 
Wherefore driftest thou so aimless on the current? 
Whither floatest thou so idly on the waters? — 
Look to Eastward ! thou shalt see the fair Aurora 
Now herself but just arising from the billows ! 

Hast thou come in all the fullness of thy beauty 

To seek conquest o'er the Goddess of the Morn- 
ing?— 

In thy consciousness of youthful charms and 
graces, 

Dost thou bring thy truth and innocence and 
beauty 

To be rivals with the splendors of Aurora? 

Needless, Rhobe ! more than needless, is thy 

coming, 
If perchance be these thy thoughts and aspir- 
ations ! 
For Aurora is but servant to thy wishes; — 
And ev'n now descends she with her rosy fingers 
To inweave glad sunbeams through thy golden 
tresses ! 



►H- 



* 



1 74 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

Never thoughts so vain as these, however, Rhobe, 
Find a lodgment in thy heart's most secret cham- 
bers: 
For though rare thy beauty, 'tis by thee unthought 

of! 
And thrice beautiful that maid in others' vision 
Who herself of loveliness is all unconscious. 

Trebly beautiful, in manhood's estimation, 
Is the maiden who to natural adornments 
Strives to add true purity and grace of spirit : 
Who to loveliness of person and of features 
Adds the glory of true womanly devotion ! 

And moreover, Rhobe, though thy charms were 

many, — 
Though thy presence far outrivaled Aphrodite 
And outshone the splendors of historic Helen, 
If thy heart's endeavor were not high and holy 
All thine outward semblance would but be as 

nothing. 

For methinks that high nobility of nature, 

And a soul possessed of simplest charms of Virtue, 



Rhobe. 1 7 5 

And a heart oft swayed by Sympathy's emotion, 

Are far lovelier, diviner, greatly grander 

Than could haughtiest Beauty e'er alone attain to. 

— But why sailest thou so early in the morning? 
Wherefore driftest thou so aimless on the current? 
Whither floatest thou so idly on the waters ? — 
Look to Eastward ! thou shalt see the fair Aurora 
Now herself but just arising from the billows ! 

Turn thine eyes, thou lovely Rhobe, to the East- 
ward : 

Watch the fast declining shadows of the dark- 
ness ; 

Bend thy gaze to yon transparent mass of ether; 

Mark the purple-blazoned arches of the Morning; 

See the yonder golden gleamings of the sun- 
shine. 

Gaze where strikes the growing glare upon the 

waters ; 
Watch the gradual lighting up of the horizon ; 
See where rises yonder rock above the billows ; 



I 



< , — s4« 

176 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

Mark the shifting, snow-white plumage of the 
yachtsmen; — 

Turn thine eyes, thou lovely Rhobe, to the East- 
ward ! 

But the maiden looks nor glances east nor west- 
ward ; 
All the glories of the dawn she counts as nothing ! 
Rapt and earnest is the phase upon her features, 
As of mortals straining eyes to sights celestial : 
And a steady gaze of rapture sends she South- 
ward. 

Speak, thou modest river maiden, — speak and 

tell us! 
What canst see thou there upon the distant ocean ? 
Whither pointed is thy look of rare affection ? 
Where directed is thine eye so true and tender? 
Dost thou gaze at sights of earth — or sights of 

heaven ! 

Ah, thou Rhobe ! 'tis yon high-uplifted light- 
house ! — 



I 



Rhobe. 177 

'Tis the lofty tower of yonder brilliant beacon 
That engages every glance and gaze thou givest! 
Yonder islet, on the edge of the Atlantic, 
Has for thee far greater charms than fair Aurora ! 

Blush not, Rhobe ! thou art watching for thy 
lover ! — 

Miles beyond thee, down the current of the 
river, 

At his lonely watch upon the edge of Ocean, 

Stands this moment, o'er the billows wide out- 
gazing, 

One who dearer is to thee than any other. 

In that pile of massive masonry high builded, 
Stands he there unseen within his lofty tower; — 
With his finger on the wick of the great lantern 
Waits he for the first bright golden gleam of sun- 
shine 
Which shall flash above the distant gray horizon ! 

Well thou knowest this, thou fairy maiden sailor ! — 
Well thou knowest that at sunrise in the morning, 
12 



► •«- 



178 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

When the glowing East shall flame with daylight's 

coming, 
Doth thy lover climb the spiral iron stairway 
To extinguish then the radiant lighthouse beacon. 

And for this thou sailest early in the morning ! 
Yea, for this thou driftest aimless on the current 
Ere as yet Aurora rises from the billows ! — 
That, unseen thyself, thou still mayst gaze to 

seaward, 
And within yon fading beacon-fire discern thy 

lover ! 

O devotion rare and wondrous is the maiden's ! 
Greater love for lover ne'er had woman, Rhobe, 
Than the love thou manifestest for thine Albin. 
Rest assured that Angels know thy consecration 
And shall bear him on their wings in faithful 
keeping ! 



►<- 



Rhobe. 179 

INTERLUDE. 

" ARE THEY NOT ALL MINISTERING SPIRITS ? " 

Oh, the air is full of beings, 

Unbeknown to mortal ken ; 
And amid Life's strange decreeings 

They are laboring hard for men. 

Hither fly they, hither, hither, 
Though no mortal eye perceive ; 

And their toil, or hither, thither, 
Is to comfort souls who grieve. 

Ministering spirits are they, 

Sent to minister to men; 
And his darkened eyes unbar they 

That Heaven's light may enter in. 

Oil of gladness for his mourning 

'Tis their mission to bestow, 
And, his tattered robes adorning, 

Turn the crimson into snow ! 



-►H 



* 



i8o Holiday Idiesse, Etc. 

Beauty they bestow for ashes, 
And a wreathed laurel hold, 

Which 'mid Life's electric flashes 
Bids the faltering one " Be bold ! " 

On their wings they upward bear him, 
Lest perchance his steps should slide 

Oft from hidden danger tear him 
Till the threatening sea subside. 

In his ear they counsel gladly, 
Till his poignant sorrow cease ; 

And when waters whirl him madly 
Gently whisper words of peace. 

Oh, the air is full of beings, 
Unbeknown to mortal ken : 

And amid Life's strange decreeings 
They are laboring hard for men. 



► «- 



Rhobe. 1S1 

Ministering spirits, Rhobe! — they are whispering; 

They are whispering in thine ear, and calling, 
calling; 

They are murmuring of the wild Atlantic's waters ; 

They are breathing, they are echoing, "Albin! 
Albin ! "— 

And they bear him on their wings in faithful keep- 
ing. 

— But extinguished now the beacon, — and thy 

lover, 
To thine eager eye invisible and distant, 
Slowly draws the sliding curtains of his lantern 
To protect it from the golden glare of morn- 
ing,— 
To enshield its bright reflectors from the sun- 
shine. 

Ere descending, stands he motionless a moment, 
Raptly gazing on his brightly burnished lantern, 
On his fairy-hued, prismatic-tinted darling ! — 
For reflected in its sympathetic circles 
Sees he ever there the mystic gaze of Rhobe ! 



1 82 Holiday Zdlesse, Etc. 

As he thinks upon the modest river maiden, 
As he ponders o'er her faith and true devotion, 
Steps he gayly to the massive plated window, — 
Flings e'en now a glance of love from out his 

eyrie, — 
Up the river, up the Kennebec's slow current. 

Doth the youthful lighthouse-keeper least imagine 
That fair Rhobe sails so early in the morning? — 
Is he drawn by any subtile sense magnetic, 
Any power profound of marvelous intuition, 
To suppose she floats so early on the waters ? 

Who can answer! — yet along the river's margin 
Wide he gazes with a glance of strange emo- 
tion : 
Gazes upward o'er the Kennebec's wide waters, 
Up to yonder cosey cottage in the distance, — 
Yonder home where lives the modest river maiden ! 

Naught however sees he there or recognizes, — 
Naught in answer to his gaze of fond affection : 
For too indistinct the cottage, and too distant, 



* 



Rhobe. 183 

And too indistinct the yacht the Little Ella, 
To be seen from out the tower of Albin's light- 
house. 

So without a single gleam of recognition, 

And without a single sight of aught familiar 

(Save the nearer panorama of the river, 

Save the coastline and the wide expanse of 

Ocean,) 
Draws he once again the curtain of his tower. 

And extinguished now the beacon ; and the maid- 
en, 
From her scene of observation up the river 
Had beheld and watched its sudden declination; — 
And in voice of tender faith and true devotion 
Did the burden of her thoughts find glad ex- 
pression : 

"O my Albin ! my beloved!" cried the maiden; 
"Thou my hope and star of promise for the 

future ! 
I indeed have gladly sailed upon the river, 



► ■«- 



184 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

And have sailed ere yet there came the gleam 

of morning, 
To behold thy distant presence in the beacon ! 

"God be with thee in thy solitude, my Albin, 
And his angels from the breath of harm preserve 

thee ! 
Be thy voyage o'er life's sea a voyage holy; 
Be thy guide the glorious rays of Bethlehem's 

starlight ; 
Be at last the eternal port of Heaven thy haven! 

" May the Hand that holds earth's firmament, my 

Albin, 
And who lights the glittering beacon-fires above 

us, 
Grant that never, like thy radiant light-house 

warning, 
Shall thy noble life go out in utter darkness, 
Or be spent, ere comes the dawn of the eternal 

Morning! 



r 



Rhobe. 185 

" And my Albin, if perchance thou now mightst 

hear me, 
List I pray thee to the prayer to Heaven I utter : 
That when finally may come to thee the summons 
Which shall call thee to the land of the Here- 
after, 
Not alone thy feet may tread the verge eternal! — 

"Separated never, during life's ascendant; 

Separated never, when the grave would part us ! 

Arm in arm entwined, the when the Bridegroom 
calleth ; 

Heart to heart enchained, in life's fast final throb- 
bings ; 

Hand in hand tight held, nor ever more to sun- 
der ! " 

And still, upon the bosom of the river, 

On the surface of the Kennebec's slow current, 
Slowly floating at the dawning of the morning, 
Slowly drifting with the shifting of the waters, 
Sailed the jaunty little sloop, the Little Ella. 



1 86 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 



PART SECOND. 

While ablaze above the watery waste of Ocean 
Rose the bright-orbed God of Day, the Sun of 

splendor, 
Bringing here a new-born life of light and glad- 
ness, 
On the world the other side of the horizon 
Slow descended the gray shadows of the Evening. 

Thus the while in darkness half the earth lies 

sleeping, 
And the while in blackness half the earth lies 

groping, 
All the rest awakes to joyful songs of labor, 
Rises up to seek pursuit of wealth and honor, 
Rises up to utter hymns of glad thanksgiving. 

And 'tis thus that while a half earth's population 
Is content to sit in listless mental shadow 
And to creep in paths of moral degradation, 



Rhobe. 187 

The remainder with a gladsome exultation 
Gains the lofty heights of Wisdom's holy mount- 
ains ! 

— Now ablaze along the margin of the river, 
All along the pine-clad Kennebec's green edges, 
Glowed the tree-tops with the golden glare of 

morning, 
Glowed the hill-tops with the mellow yellow sun- 
shine, 
With the purple-tinted radiance of Aurora. 

With the rising of the sun above the waters, 
With the fleeing of the filmy mists of morning, 
Came a steady freshening breeze from up the 

Southward : 
O'er the surface of the slowly-rippling river 
Came a gentle undulation from the Ocean. 

Swift the sails of all the ships on the Atlantic, — 
All the burdened barks bound home from distant 
commerce, 



*> 



1 88 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

With their heavy laden freights from foreign 
markets 

And their holy wealth of human hearts by 
hundreds, 

Bowed their heads to meet the breezes' benedic- 
tion. 



Swift the sails of all the ships from home depart- 
ing,— 

Ships with products of the field and of the forest, 

Ships with golden stores of high-piled Western 
harvests 

For the life and strength and nourishment of 
nations, 

Felt the breeze and bowed their heads to the 
Atlantic. 



Fast the fishing-boats from many a homely harbor, 
And the schooners for the Grand Banks of New- 
foundland, 
And the white - robed yachts of Wealth's gay 
usurpation, 



< ^ 

Rhobe. i8o 



Felt alike with joy the air's glad ministration, 
And to greet the breeze flung out their clouds 
of canvas. 



[At this point, as the present poem was originally written, 
were inserted the lines "Whither, ye Stately Ships?" 
found in the earlier pages of this book. In the design of 
the whole volume, the author deemed it wise to give the 
stanzas mentioned a separate position. They may, however, 
if the reader desires, be noted in this connection.] 



With the rising of the sun above the waters, 
With the fleeing of the filmy mists of morning, 
Came a steady freshening breeze from up the 

Southward : 
•O'er the surface of the slowly-rippling river 
Came a gentle undulation from the Ocean. 

Homeward steering now, and fast the waves o'er- 

flying, 
Rode the fairy maid, the Queen of all the River: 



190 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

Far behind her lay the distant lighthouse-beacon, — 
Far behind her on the edge of the Atlantic: 
And before her rose the island shores of George- 
town. 

Long and low, and thickly crowned at times with 

verdure, 
Were the shores where Rhobe steered the Little 

Ella: 
And anon a gentle hillside, hemlock burdened, 
And anon a grassy slope or stretch of meadow 
Met her gaze as home she sailed along the river. 

Freely dotted 'mid the foliage of the landscape 
Fast appeared to her full many a home familiar : 
For well-known and highly loved in all the island, 
All along the river's varied panorama, 
Was the fairy maiden sailor, lovely Rhobe. 

Yet nor stayed she now upon her upward journey, 
Though assured of honest, earnest, hearty welcome, 
To revisit friends or meet their kindly greeting ; 



Rhobe. 191 

Homeward now, to Iher own father's cosey cottage. 
To her household duties, was she fast returning. 

As she onward sped, so early, o'er the waters, 
The whole earth around seemed filled with peace 

and gladness, 
And with holiest acclamations of thanksgiving. 
As she sailed, she heard from wave and wood 

and meadow, 
Constant rising, hymns of praise to the Immortal. 

The wide earth's inhabitants, with Morn awaking, 
Man and beast and bird, alike in joyous transport, 
With united song beholding the bright Sun's up- 
rising, 
And the fleeing of Night's sable shades and 

shadows, 
Raised with one accord their hymns to the Im- 
mortal. 

All around her Rhobe heard the songs arising ; 
All around she heard the symphony of Nature : 
In the rippling of the wave and rush of waters, 



192 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

In the verdant meadows and the sighing zephyrs, 
In the rustling woodlands and primeval forests. 

In yon distant dooryard, with a din unrivaled, 

Rose the crow and cackle of the fowls, and with 
them 

The reverberating notes of lordly gobblers. 

Sheep and lambs amid the hedges playful gam- 
boled, 

With a tender, plaintive, melancholy bleating. 

On their way to pasture the responsive lowing 
Of the kine made sober chorus to the neighing 
Of the prancing horses. Innocently frisking 
In the path, while slow their soberer elders 

cropped the 
Springing verdure, the young calves made sport 

like children. 

On the lawn, and 'mid the widening meadow, 

loudly, 
And anon with delicate reverberation, 



►* 



Rhobe. 193 

Chirped and whirred the cricket ; and with whirl 

and buzzing 
In the air, his flight erratic and uncertain, 
Lazily the droning fly drummed on the ceiling. 

Far away, upon a distant spruce-top, mocking 
With a dolorous cry his young and sprightlier 

brethren, — 
Cawing with a continuous lamentation, — 
Solitary screamed the patriarch crow of George- 
town, 
Mourning buried days and long past depredations. 

A few sea-fowl, soaring high above the river, 
Following the current to the edge of Ocean, 
Sent to earth a cry of weirdly wild foreboding, — 
As expectant of the cruel whirl of waters 
Where the gunner's aim should bring them, blind 
and bleeding. 

Gayly in the trees, or from the wilding thicket, 
The red-bosomed pilferer of the ripening cherries 
13 



-►"* 



ig4 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

Made the field-bound farmer fair remuneration 
For the feast by trilling him a glad "Good- 
morrow ! " 
While a myriad voices echoed, " Glad good- 
morrow ! " 

Thus around her Rhobe heard the songs arising ; 
All around she heard the symphony of Nature : 
In the rippling of the -wave and rush of waters, 
In the verdant meadows and the sighing zephyrs, 
In the rustling woodlands and primeval forests. 



[This poem was written very early, being one of the writer's 
first compositions in verse. In reviewing the manuscript for 
these pages, after the lapse of the four or five years since its 
production, the author is led to deem the peculiar versification 
one of increasing monotony, and much of the narrative itself 
of inferior interest. Accordingly he has felt it wise to omit, at 
this point in the story, many pages. The poem was the result 
of two Summers' personal experience amid the scenes describ- 
ed ; and the delightful shores and summits of the Kennebec, 
the Sheepscot, and their confluent streams, were pictured in the 
poem at no inconsiderable length. The verses which have al- 
ready been given (notwithstanding their frequent betrayal of the 



Rhobe. 195 



author's boyish ardor and inexperience) are sufficiently fresh, it 
is hoped, and present incidents and scenes of sufficient interest, 
to repay perusal. Below will be found the conclusion of the 
poem as it was originally designed. The following brief sum- 
mary of the intervening portions will enable the reader to re- 
sume the narrative intelligently : 

Arriving at her island home, Rhobe (the name is pronounced 
in two syllables) discovers that the early morning has brought 
to her father's cottage a visitor, in the person of Margie, Albin's 
sister. Margie comes to invite Rhobe to her own home for a 
week, where Albin himself is to be for that length of time, — he 
having happily secured the mentioned respite from his lonely 
lighthouse labors, through the intervention of a friend who had 
volunteered to assume his responsible duties during the inter- 
val. Early on the following morning the two maidens sail to- 
gether to the rocky island at the mouth of the river, to bring 
the brother and lover to his home. 

It is during the succeeding week of holidays that the inci- 
dents occur, and that the scenes are visited, described in the 
omitted portions of the poem. Not being necessary to an un- 
derstanding of the poem's conclusion, no summary of the daily 
river-excursions is here given. 

On the last day of the seven, a little fleet of sail-boats, con- 
taining in all a party of twenty or more young people, leaves 
shore for a day's sail along the coast. In the Little Ella are 
only Rhobe and her lover, Margie being in another boat. Pre- 
monitions of a storm arising, the fleet puts about, in the middle 
of the afternoon, but is delayed for hours by contrary winds. 
At nightfall, despairing of reaching the mouth of the river be- 
fore the rise of the tempest, Albin signals the fleet to enter a 
nearer harbor, where all arrive safe. Albin himself, however, 
urged by some premonition of disaster, resolves to push on. 



X 



HH- 



196 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



He is accompanied by Rhobe, she having refused to be put on 
board one of the shore-bound yachts, — if indeed such a trans- 
fer to another boat had been possible for her in the rising sea. 
Darkness now falls, and the storm almost immediately descends 
with great fury, the boat being many times nearly engulfed. An 
hour later, rounding after many unsuccessful attempts the point 
of an intervening island, Albin discovers, to his dismay, that his 
light is not lit, although the sun has long sunk and the storm is 
furious. Urged doubly now, the Little Ella, with Albin at the 
bow as lookout, and with Rhobe at the helm, steers straight for 
the light. It is at this point in the story that the original verses 
are resumed.] 



PART THIRD. 

Onward through the darkness, through the spray 

fast-flying, 
Onward, shivering, trembling, leaping through the 

billows, 
Onward to the black gigantic bulk before them, 
To the foam-enshrouded, rock-surrounded island, 
Sped, with storm-sent haste, the sloop the Little 

Ella. 



* 



Rhobe. 197 

Rough the breaking billows here, in calmest 

weather ; 
Black these sunken ledges, when the sea is 

smiling ; 
Difficult the landing, in the cheeriest daylight : 
What shall save the maiden, what shall save the 

lover, 
When upon the shore the surge shall bear the 

shallop ! 

Skill shall save, and courage. Well the light- 
house-keeper 

Knows each sunken rock, each sea and shore- 
ward current ; — 

Peering o'er the bowsprit, peering through the 
darkness, 

Guided by the waters roaring on the ledges, 

Calls he momently to Rhobe, "Port," or "Star- 
board." 

To the little stretch of beach piled soft with sea- 
weed, — 
To the only stretch of beach on all the island, 



►« 



198 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

Hardly six short boat-lengths wide, and edged 

by breakers, — 
Through the blinding, hurrying, howling whirl of 

waters, 
Rhobe steered the little sloop, the Little Ella. 



Ah ! the undertow is striving like a giant, — 
Like a demon of the sea, with velvet fingers, 
With a soft and sinuous touch alluring to him 
The light pebbles on the beach and the long 

seaweed, — 
Then down-dragging them with shriek of terrible 

laughter. 

And the wind — the wind is howling through the 

cordage, 
And the sail, though trebly reefed, is torn and 

ribboned, 
And the boat, careering wildly, dips the current 
Till its rail is inches deep beneath the water, — 
Till its keel is raised to view of the wild sea- 
gulls ! 



4- 



Rhobe. 199 

"Safe!" said Albin, smiling. "Safe!" said 

Rhobe, leaping 

From the shallop to the waiting arms held open ; 

For the demon of the sea had missed the mo- 
ment, — 

Had hurled high on the soft beach the boat un- 
injured, 

And slunk back with scream of baffled rage and 
envy. 

Up the rocky pathway, now, the lighthouse- 
keeper, 
Stumbling in the darkness over slippery seaweed, 
Over loosened stones and timbers, which the 

storm-wind 
In its fury had flung wide athwart the hill-slope, 
Hastened with fleet eager footsteps to the tower. 

Tying the sloop's hawser first to a huge boulder, 
Hastened Rhobe also, after him, to aid him, 
Choosing for her upward path a gentler passage 
Than the bold precipitous ascent which Albin 
In his sturdy might athletic had selected. 



200 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

Up a narrow winding path o'erhung by beeches, 
And by thick dwarfed spruce-trees bordered, 

firmly planted 
In the niches of high jagged rocks, age-shattered, 
Sped the maiden — till, when half way up the 

hill-slope, 
Suddenly she heard a cry of pain — a moaning. 

Oft with wonder, mingled with a tinge of terror, 
Had the maiden, in her visits to the island, 
Viewed high-towering here a mass of crumbling 

granite, 
Tipt with shattered pine-trunks, — trembling, — 

wide o'er-hanging 
All the pathway, — waiting, waiting to plunge 
downward. 

And the storms had howled about it, and the 

whirlwinds 
Had encompassed it, and rains had on it fallen, 
Till at last — at last it sundered, and in fragments, 
While the tempest thundered, broke from its 

foundations, — 



Rhobe. 20 1 

And across the path now shattered lay and 
ruined. 

And emprisoned underneath the waste and rub- 
bish, — 

Struck down suddenly, and caught and held, 
half buried, 

Hours before, in climbing upward from the landing 

To the granite tower to light and tend the 
beacon, — 

Lay the friend whose kindly aid had favored 
Albin. 

"Haste thee! — wait not, Rhobe!" said he, — for 
the maiden, 

Hearing the faint moan beneath the pile, had 
spoken, 

Asking who was there, and how she in the dark- 
ness, 

And alone, the best might aid him ? And he 
answered : 

"Mind not me! but haste thee, Rhobe, — fire 
the beacon ! " 



202 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

11 Nay, for Albin is at hand," replied the maiden. 
"He is at the tower ev'n now — and ah! thank 

Heaven ! 
Yonder, flashes out this moment, o'er the island, 
The bright warning message of the lantern ! 

Like to 
Bethlehem's starlight be this beacon to the 

sailor ! " 

Then, with ready hand and gentle, Rhobe la- 
bored, — 

With a rapid skill the fallen man releasing, — 

Rolling back the broken boulders and the pine- 
trunks 

Till he stood beside her, upright, little injured. 

From the dead weight of the rocks the trees had 
saved him. 

So together upward, — on her arm he leaning, — 
Strove they through the raging storm to reach 

the tower. 
All was blackness o'er the wide slope of the 

island ; 



► «- 



I 



►H- 



Rhobe. 203 

All was hurrying spray and cloud-rack on the 

waters, 
Save where feebly shone the bright track of the 

lantern. 

"A most fearful night!" said Albin, as they 

met him. 
"Ay! a night indeed!" said Walter, while with 

wonder 
Albin listened to his tale, as he recounted 
How the jutting crag had fallen, and how Rhobe — 
"Bless her heart heroic!" cried he — had re- 
leased him. 

"See how flares the lurid lightning in the 

offing ! 

How the roaring, turbid waters are illumined 

By the sudden zig-zag flashes ! " whispered Al- 
bin. — 

" Gracious God ! " he cried. " Yon brig ! why 
comes she hither ! 

See where heads she for the reef! — what power 
can save her ! 



■++< 



204 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

"I must go!" he cried. "See, she is drifting 

heedless. 
There is time — I can sail out and intercept her! 
Fools ! — nay, nay, the fault is mine ! for had the 

beacon 
Been aflame ere yet they drifted near the island — 
Had I been upon my post — they had not perished. 

"Knowing not the sunken reef to which they 

hasten, 
They lie still,- with folded arms, and wait and linger, 
Daring not to spread a yard of sail, lest haply 
To the very death they fly, to which, unthought of, 
While they linger, crying ' We are safe,' they 

hurry ! 

" I must go ! Nay, Rhobe, with thine eyes 

beseeching, 

Look not thou, my love, so wild at me, re- 
morseful ! " 

"O my Albin ! " cried the maiden. "Wild the 
waters ! 

Never from the shore can you succeed in pushing. 

And your little boat in such a sea will perish." 






Rhobe. 205 

"Ah! but better, Rhobe, — trebly better were it 
When calls Duty, sternest voice of God or Nature, 
Ev'n to perish, than to fail in the fulfilling ! 
Bid me go — see! half a hundred souls may 

perish : 
You and I are two!" "Ah God! but if we 

sunder ! — 

"If we sunder," moaned the maiden, "what is 

left me ? 
Two ? nay, one are we ! one only, and forever ! 
O my Albin ! my beloved ! " cried the maiden ; 
"If we sunder — if we sunder, what is left me? 
But the vessel dies ! Go ! God be with you, 

Albin ! " 

■So he left them. And a moment, while they 

listened, 
Bending eagerly, they heard his flying footsteps 
As he hastened down the rocky seaward terrace. 
Then the roar of the wild tempest shook the 

tower, 
And naught heard they but the long roll of the 

breakers. 



*P- 



206 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

But the next flash of the lightning, streaming 

seaward, 
Showed them Albin in his own light life-boat, 

rowing, 
Toiling outward, with bare mast, to where the 

drifting, 
Helpless vessel, hid from view in the dense 

blackness, 
Lay in danger. And they feared to look upon 

him. 

"O my Albin! my beloved!" cried the maiden; 
"Thou my hope and star of promise for the 

future ! " 
And no word of prayer, no other thought, she 

murmured, 
Than the sad refrain, " My Albin, O my Albin, 
If we sunder — if we sunder, what is left me!" 

Then she thought of the swift-coming, happy 

Autumn, 
When no more through all the long, cold, cruel 

Winter 



+? 



Rhobe. 207 

Should the lighthouse-keeper tend the gleaming 

lantern — ■ 
When they two together, in their own snug cottage 
On the mainland, would live warm and calm and 

happy. 

And her thougnts ran down the coming years, 
swift-fleeting, 

Which should bring to them prosperity and 
children — 

Smiling acres, crowned with rich, abundant har- 
vests, 

And fresh fair young beaming faces, radiant, 
golden : 

Dreamed she even now she heard their innocent 
prattle ! 

"Ah, — my God! Stand back! stand back !" cried 

Walter, seizing 
And with stern grasp forcing far-off from the 

window 
The pale maiden. For a blinding flash — long- 

streamins: 



208 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

And intense — had showed him where the little 

life-boat, 
By a swift wave overturned, floated keel upward ! 

But the maid escaped him. To the window hasting, 

Saw she, as the radiance died, the deed of ruin. 

"On the brig they had just sighted him," cried 
Walter, 

"And obeying his alarm had veered to South- 
ward, — 

When the mad wave, hurrying onward, overturned 
him." 

" He is safe ! " cried Rhobe, watching from the 

window 
Till another gleam shot far athwart the waters. 
"He has risen from the waves, and strongly battling 
With the billows gains a hold upon the life-boat, 
And is floating now upon the o'erturned shallop. 

"But they see him not, nor hear him!" cried the 

maiden. 
"In the darkness they have fled away and left him! 



Rhobe. 209 

O my Albin ! thou didst risk thy life to save them — 
Shall not I — O willingly! — now dare the tempest, 
Thee to rescue, in the sloop the Little Ella?" 

"Nay, — but Rhobe!" Walter cried, and had de- 
tained her : 

But she would not listen. "Guard the lantern, 
Walter ! 

See that it burns bright, nor let it ever flicker. 

Safe full soon will he and I again together 

Come to land — or hand in hand together perish!" 

Then she vanished out of sight, and the dull 

booming 
Of the tempest, and the thunder of the breakers, 
And the shriek of the wild waves upon the 

pebbles, 
And the scream, shrill, sharp and piercing, of the 

curlew, 
Were the only sounds that met the ear of Walter. 

Stood he dazed a moment, speechless. Downward 

swooping 

•4 



210 Holiday fd/esse, Etc. 

With swift pinion, — madly swooping, — screaming, — 

calling, — 
Dashed three sea-birds, wild, against the alluring 

beacon : 
Hard against the massive windows: then with 

broken, 
Shattered pinions, and dull pain-cries, fell they 

fainting ! 

Dimly through the brain of Walter passed a vision. 
"Love is a strong beacon," said he, "and alluring; 
And on pinions eager as the hurrying sea-bird, 
And as thoughtless of the way, we fly to gain it. 
And with shattered plumes and pain-cries fall we 
fainting! " 

Sadly leaned he, with white face, against the lantern. 
Seemed he to grow weak — all strength seemed 

ebbing from him. 
Blurred and blinded, ev'n with tears, became his 

vision. 
"Never more," he groaned, "on the loved face 

of Rhobe 
Shall I look again, nor on the face of Albin ! " 



-►■< 



Rhobe. 211 

Then he hastened, and adown the spiral stairway, 
And adown the hill-slope, followed after Rhobe. 
"Bright will burn the lantern," said he, "till the 

morning. 
And alone," he cried, "by no strong arm attended, 
She can never launch the sloop the Little Ella ! 

"I will lend my aid! — and once on board the 
shallop 

I alone will push from shore — and leave the 
maiden ! " 

So he downward sped with swift foot to the 
landing, — 

But he found nor boat nor maiden. Only harshly 

In his face swept drops of bullet-like fierce sea- 
spray. 

"Ah!" he said, "I might have known. — The tide 

has risen. — 
And the maiden has not sailed upon these waters. 
Since she first could haul a sheet or hold a tiller, 
To be baffled in the launching of her shallop! 
Ev'n the mad waves she would make to do her 

bidding." 



212 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

Then he strained his eyes far out into the offing : 
Sail nor boat, nor maid nor lover, met his vision — 
Blackness only, and the rushing of the tempest, 
And the distant swirl and swash on the bare 

ledges. 
And there was no other boat on all the island ! 

"I shall better see," he thought, ''from out the 

lantern." 
So he ran. But when again he gained the tower, — 
When high -perched he stood within his lofty 

eyrie, — 
To look forth he dreaded. Yet the lurid lightning, 
Flashing still each moment, called him to the 

window. 

As he stood there, gazing out into the blackness, 
On his burdened mind swept multitudes of 

visions, — 
Of the days when he and Albin, boys together, 
On the neighboring beaches sported, or, in rude 

boats 
Their own hands had fashioned, paddled on the 

river ; 

U > 



Rhobe. 213 

Of the happy days when, arm in arm, they 

wandered 
To the busy shipyards sweet with pine and resin, 
On the river's western margin, and with buoyant 
Eager hearts sailed outward in imagination 
Over sun-lit seas and to far fragrant islands ; 

Of the later days, when Albin, seeking labor, 
Came to keep the lighthouse and to tend the 

beacon ; 
Of his confidence, still later, when of Rhobe 
He one day vouchsafed to speak, and trusted 

Walter 
With the tidings of their mutual affection. 

Then recalled he how one day upon the river, 
When the Little Ella sailed at early morning, 
In his fishing-schooner he had passed the maiden, 
And, — himself unseen, — had overheard her singing, 
And had caught these words, as on the air they 
floated : 

"O my Albin! my beloved!" — these her words 
were. 



■*¥* 



2 1 4 Holiday Idles se. Etc. 

"Thou my hope and star of promise for the 

future ! 
I indeed have gladly sailed upon the river, 
And have sailed ere yet there came the gleam 

of morning, 
To behold thy distant presence in the beacon! 

"God be with thee in thy solitude, my Albin, 
And his angels from the breath of harm preserve 

thee ! 
Be thy voyage o'er life's sea a voyage holy; 
Be thy guide the glorious rays of Bethlehem's 

starlight ; 
Be at last the eternal port of Heaven thy haven ! 

" And my Albin, if perchance thou now mightst 
hear me, 

List I pray thee to the prayer to Heaven I utter: 

That when finally may come to thee the sum- 
mons 

Which shall call thee to the land of the Here- 
after, 

Not alone thy feet may tread the verge eternal! — 



+H 



*■ 



•>< 



Rhobe. 2 1 5 

"Separated never, during life's ascendant; 

Separated never, when the grave would part us! 

Arm in arm entwined, the when the Bridegroom 
calleth ; 

Heart to heart enchained, in life's fast final 
throbbings ; 

Hand in hand tight held, nor ever more to sun- 
der ! " 

Standing leaning with pale face against the lantern, 
As upon his mind returned the maiden's prayer, • 
"O prophetic words! too soon fulfilled!" cried 

Walter. 
Then again a flash lit up the wide-flung waters, 
And the fountains of the great deep seemed 

upbreaking. 

One glimpse only, Walter caught, through all the 
darkness, 

Throughout all the terrible, drear hours till day- 
light, 

Of the sloop which had been called the Little 
Ella! 



216 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

Mastless, water-logged, she seemed, and all but 

sinking, 
And amid her shattered stays two forms seemed 



— When the daylight came, and down the rocky 
terrace 

Walter hastened to the shore to search the ledges, 

Scattered were the rocks and sands with wide- 
flung seaweed, 

With old spars and timbers and huge piles of 
driftwood ; — 

And a few short boat-lengths outward on the 
current, 

On the sullen crest of the subsiding billows, 
Slowly floating at the dawning of the morning, 
Slowly drifting with the shifting of the waters, 
Driven here and there, were fragments of the 

shallop — 
Fragments only, of the sloop the Little Ella. 

And a rod or two beyond the narrow landing, 
On the rocks up-tossed, and still together clinging, 



Rhobe. 217 

With the seaweed in their hair and on their faces, 
And the sea-shell's pallid hue where crimson 

dulses 
Yesterday had blushed less ruddy, Walter found 

them. 



Gone are many years, since on the rocky island 
At the edge of Ocean Albin kept the lighthouse ; 
Gone are many years, since Rhobe on the river 
Sailed at early morning in the Little Ella; 
And the granite tower is lanternless and ruined. 

Over the bald turret creeps the tender ivy, 
And around it cling the golden-rod and yarrow. 
But anigh the base of the old, crumbling ruin 
Rises proudly a more brilliant, powerful beacon : 
And the people call it ever, "Albin's lighthouse." 

A few feet from the old tower there blossoms lowly, 
Hidden half by ivy, a green mound — one only. 



218 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

Here they rest — the maiden Rhobe and her lover; 
Here in calm they lie, while vainly roars the 

Ocean ; 
Here in peace repose they, steadfast, and forever. 

Few of all the listless multitudes who daily 
Throng the busy steamers plying on the river, 
Know the tender story of the love of Rhobe; — 
Eyes with wonder lifted to behold the lantern 
As they pass beneath it, see not where she 
slumbers. 

Loving hands, however, who her tale remember, 
And who know the valor of the death of Albin, 
Yearly twine green ivy o'er the graven tablet 
Which records the story of their true devotion,— 
Of their hopes in life, and of their death together. 

And the chisel, on one side of the white tablet, 
Has engraved the legend, "Trebly better were it 
When calls Duty, sternest voice of God or Nature, 
Ev'n to perish, than to fail in the. fulfilling ! " 
And upon the other side is writ this stanza : 



*- 



i 



Rhobe. 219 

"Separated never, during life's ascendant; 

Separated never, when the grave would part them ! 

Arm in arm entwined, the when the Bridegroom 
called them ; 

Heart to heart enchained, in life's fast final throb- 
bings ; 

Hand in hand tight held, nor ever more to sun- 
der!" 

Many are the sloops, and many are the 

schooners, 
Which upon the widening current of the river 
Sail at early morning, sail at purple twilight, — 
Sloops and schooners filled with happy, smiling 

faces ; 
But among them never Rhobe sails, nor Albin : 

Nor ever more upon the bosom of the river, 
On the surface of the Kennebec's slow current, 
Slowly floating at the dawning of the morning, 
Slowly drifting with the shifting of the waters, 
Sails the jaunty little sloop, the Little Ella. 



220 Holiday Idlesse, Etc, 

THREE FRAGMENTS 

FROM AN UNFINISHED ALLEGORY. 

I. WALNUT HILL. 
(Medford, near Boston, Massachusetts.) 

A noontide sun, in early Summer-time ; 
Low, billowy summits, in their verdant prime, 
Bounding a valley wide and fair and still : 
And in the midst, the slopes of Walnut Hill ! 

On all the northern hand, — far-reaching, gray, — 
The heights of Winchester, in rude array; 
And trending east, where lakes like sapphires burn, 
The Fells of Middlesex, embowered in fern. 

Still east, the sea ! a silvery line and thin, 
Hedged by the rocky heights of distant Lynn ; 
And near at hand, slow-winding, placid, blue, — 
Along whose banks once Paul Revere flew, — 



*" 



* 



Walnut Hill. 221 

The Mystic's narrow tide — expanding soon 
Into a crystal mere, a broad lagoon, 
Reflecting far, from morn till evening hour, 
Gray Bunker's lofty, sun-illumined tower. 

Southward, the city — dreary desert vast!... 
Haste thee, my verse ! beware the woe ! fly fast ! . . . 
Far, far beyond, see Milton's purple hills, 
The blue-domed range which every bosom thrills; 
And nearer, — where the marbles hide from view 
The ashes of a Sumner and Ballou, — 
Fair Auburn ! circled by a hundred farms, 
And clasped in sluggish Charles's sinuous arms. 

Westward, the fertile fields of Alewife Brook, 
Laughing with harvests ripening for the hook, — 
Flecked by the shadows of vast clouds that float 
Aimless as shipwrecked sails on seas remote, — 
Edged by low mountains, shimmering in the sun, 
The emerald Heights, far-famed, of Arlington ! 
Enchanted hills, which, when the day is past, 
Are tipt with glory such as Nebo cast 
When angels hastened o'er its darkening crest, 
Bearing the Hebrew prophet to his rest ! 



*b 



-►H 



Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



HEART OF YOUTH. 



Northward and eastward from this favored 

scene, — 
This Walnut Hill, this college-crowned demesne, — 
Beyond the river flowing at its feet, 
Beyond the whirl of village pier and street, 
There winds a road through rarest sylvan ways, 
The ever new delight of summer days. 

Here darkling thickets, densely green, abide. 
Hazel, and oak, and birch, on either side, — 
Where the brown partridge unseen whirrs, and 

where 
Gray squirrels lurk, and rabbits have their lair. 
Here blooms the barberry, in yellow sprays, 
Miles long ! and here, through all the summer days, 
The sweet wild rose and fragrant wilding phlox 
Vie with the garden pinks and hollyhocks 
Which shall be crowned the fairer! And the prize 
No single wanderer, passing with pleased eyes, 
Withholds from Nature's wilding ones, here strowed 

Luxuriantly. 

Along this sunny road 



** 



Heart of Youth. 223 

Two friends were walking at the noon of day ; 
And both were thoughtful, though they both were 

gay- 

They both were thoughtful; but the summer air, 
The sunshine through the branches here and there, 
The laughing bobolink, the cawing crow, 
The blue above, the emerald below, 
Made life that hour so beautiful a dream, 
That rustling leaf nor onward murmuring stream 
Could less of sorrow feel, or wild despair, 
Than these companions idly wandering there. 

For both were young ! and in the soul of each 
Were aspirations deeper than all speech : 
Ambitions for the honor which the world 
Stands ready to inscribe on flags unfurled 
In noble causes;- — aspirations, too, 
That honor granted should be honor due. 

They dreamed of sacred fire withheld by Gods : 
They knew of Caucasus, and of the odds 
Prometheus wrestled with, and all his pain; 
And yet they dared it all, and more, again; 
And with the vultures' whirr still sounding nigh, 
They dared to rest their ladder on the sky. 



i 



► «- 



224 Holiday fdlesse, Etc 

Upon the shore of Time they would not sit. 
The Ocean was before ! and they were knit 
Unto a firm resolve, by faith upheld 
To walk the waters ! If they boiled and welled, 
The way would be more difficult; if calm, 
The port were sooner reached — the Isles of Palm. 
Nor did they hesitate to point their feet 
To where life's ocean and horizon meet. 

They knew — yet were not daunted — wild with 
spray 
The vengeful tempest would assail their way. 
They knew men's bones lay bleaching in the 

sand ; 
They saw the carcasses tossed high on land 
Of earnest voyagers who yesterday 
Had left the beach as buoyantly as they. 
But these (they said) had sailed without a chart: 
Or failed to use it : and the human heart, 
By passion ballasted, to escape the brine 
A special port must own, and chart divine. 



-*H 






11 By Passion Ballasted." 225 



III. "BY PASSION BALLASTED. 7 

With this they turned into a narrow lane, 
Half hidden in the leafy underbrush; 
A fragrant avenue, whose sacred hush 
Was broken by the rumble of no wheel, 
No whirl of dust, no echo but the peal 
Of sporting bobolinks ; and where the moss 
A soft rich tapestry spread wide across; 
And all along, as far as eye could reach, 
The birch and hazel boughs and silver beech 
Threw grateful shade. 

"This winding road," said one, 
"Will guide us to the mountain-top. The sun, 
Which hitherto hath flamed upon our way 
With furious heat, will here its fury stay, 
And cooling breezes now will fan our cheek. 
The road is sure • I heard my father speak 
But yesterday of climbing this same path." 

The other lingered. "Greater beauty hath 
The wilding thicket for my mood," said he. 

15 



226 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

"Behold ! a rod beyond this sumach-tree 
Sharply the mountain's base begins to rise. 
Why toil we on ! ' Reward of high emprise ' 
Is here at hand ! Behold ! the forest floor 
Is thick with violets ! And here a door 
Between the maple-trunks seems opening wide, 
Inviting us to enter. In ! " he cried, 
And caught his comrade's arm, and sought 
To lure him. 

But his zeal availed him naught. 

"One moment, brother mine !" his comrade said. 
"We started out, the mountain's highest head 
Intent to reach. Shall we be baffled here, 
By violets ? And yonder buds, I fear, 
Are not the violets your haste has thought. 
Those purple petals, delicately wrought, 
With subtle odor, poisonous, are filled. 
The deadly nightshade, if your eyes were skilled, 
You would declare them ! And your open door 
Is barred with stone and briar. The forest floor 
To which with sudden frenzy you would haste, 
Look you, is marshy ground — a miry waste." 



4- 



"By Passion Ballasted." 227 

"Enough!" perversely here the other cried. 
" Give over ! Get you up the mountain-side ! 
Keep to your mossy pathway if you will — 
The roughest road is soonest up the hill ! 
I shall stop here awhile, among the flowers, 
And rest beneath the trees. In after hours 
I'll join you on the mountain's topmost height. 
I know not how I shall ascend, but night 
Will not have fallen ere I join you. Go ! " 

He waited not for answer : but the low 
And sympathetic voice which oft had held 
Him humbled with its music, rose and swelled, 
And broke upon his ear in sweetest tone 
Of friendship, begging, "Leave me not alone!" 
In notes of warning, crying, " Do not go ! " 

He waited not for answer: but the low 
Wind murmured in his ear, and seemed to say: 
"'Twere better, better, thoughtless youth, to stay! 
To stay were better ! " And as on he passed, 
Still heedless, — with a deeper, warning blast, 
"The way is long!" it sighed, "and short the 

day ! "— 
It shouted! and the woodland echoed, "Stay!" 



4 



► «*■ 



228 Holiday Id I esse, Etc. 

He waited not for answer : but a brood 
Of white-winged doves flew over where he stood, 
Seeming to whisper, as they wung their way 
On rapid pinion heavenward, "Stay, O stay!" 

He waited not for answer — in he strode, 
At once his friend forsaking, and the road. 
Mindless of all — of pain or torn attire — 
He leaped the wall and scrambled through the 

briar. 
His soul was innocent of thought of ill ; 
His heart, untried, was buoyant ; , and his will 
Was steadfast (so he thought) to do the right. 
What matter where he wandered, if the night 
Should not have fallen ere he gained the peak ! 

But surely, so it seemed, across his cheek, 
The winds, which kissed him in the sun-lit way 
Where he before had wandered — which in play 
Had sported with his hair, and fanned his brow — 
Were blowing searchingly and damply now. 
And when he looked, and saw upon his hand 
A score of crimson drops — a purple brand 

>U » _ >i« 



"By Passion Ballasted.'''' 229 

The briers had punctured ; when he felt the pain, 

At first forgot, now doubly felt again; 

And looking down beheld the dust, the burrs, 

Thick fastened on him — shaken from the furze: 

Backward he cast a lingering glance, and stood 

As one irresolute. The ground was strewed 

With stubble, broken stones, with last year's leaves : 

A prospect desolate. As one who grieves 

For pleasures vanished, and would fain return, 

So stood he now, and felt his pulses burn 

With shame that he had wandered from the way. 

Again he heard the wind ! It seemed to say, 

"Repent! return! ye have not wandered far!" 

Above his head, from out his golden car, 

The Sun, Apollo, threw a quickening beam. 

Back flew the irised host of doves, agleam 

In every pinion with a golden . glow ; 

And circling in the air, above, below, 

"Ye have not wandered far!" they seemed to 

cry,— 
"Repent! return!" — then vanished in the sky. 
Again he heard a voice — or seemed to hear. 
Or voice or echo, sounding in his ear 



2T,o Holiday Fdlesse, Etc. 

It startled him, as if before his eye 
His friend deserted had come suddenly. 

He listened, — turned, — had fled the dull abode, 
And in a moment would have gained the road,— 
When yonder field again his eye besets, 
The purple field — to him still violets! 

"I will not go," he cried, — and on his knees 
Down flung himself, — "till I have gathered these ! " 

A stagnant stream was there. It did not flow, 
But moved to right or left as wind might blow ; 
And on its surface curling leaves careered 
And severed lily-pads. Dim, withered, weird, 
A ghostly cypress-tree and meadow-larch 
Above the margin reared a rugged arch, 
Throwing a slanting shadow on the rank 
Wet deadly nightshade growing on the bank. 

And here the seeker after purple flowers 
Knelt fondly down to while away the hours. 



-►H 



* 



The Schoolmaster's Dream. 231 



THE SCHOOLMASTER'S DREAM. 

Weary with toil, at desk and board and book, 
Gladly he dropped the crayon in its nook ; 
But forcing to his lips a kindly smile, 
And touching with soft hand his bell the while, 
Said cheerfully, " The hour to close is nigh : 
The setting sun drops down the western sky. 
To-morrow, with new ease, will come new strength 
We reach, perchance, untiring days at length ! " 
Then rang again, and noting the sweet grace 
And eagerness that lit each fair young face, 
Dismissed them all into the evening air 
With fervent blessing and an inward prayer. 

The master's soul was sorrowful with doubt — 
He whose triumphant faith should be so stout. 
His pupils were so sluggish in the arts ! 
They had such feverish and impatient hearts ! 
"O soul!" he said, "thy toil meets no return. 
Life's cheeriest fires to blackened embers burn. 



232 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. . 

No adequate return," again he said, 
And on the desk before him leaned his head. 
The western windows opened to the blue; 
The sinking sun sent slanting shadows through: 
He saw it not, nor heard the droning flies, — 
But lulled by Nature's opiate, closed his eyes. 

He sees nor hears — his soul's tired pinions sweep 
The shadowy vale of Death's twin-brother, Sleep. 
All day, sad voices, sounding in his ear, 
Had filled his spirit with a nameless fear. 
Surely no followers, in this sunless land, 
Would jeer and beckon him on every hand! 
But ah! ev'n here, — though with no taunt or 

shout, — 
A myriad spirits thronged him round about; 
And with a soothing sound, as of a wind 
Low-breathing through the fragrant groves of Ind, 
A single angel — not of gloom, but light — 
Said tenderly, "O King, thy wrongs recite!" 

"Alas!" the master said, "no King am I! — 
Even the crown of laurel-leaves is dry 



*■ 



>u > 

The Schoolmaster's Dream. 233. 

Which in my younger years my sister wove, 

Because at college, among all who strove, 

I, only, won, and bore away the prize ! " 

"Nay," said the angel, "principalities, 

States, empires, kingdoms, — these all pass away, 

Forgotten even in an earthly day. 

The crown immortal, the enduring throne, — 

These to be steadfast must be like thine own ! 

He who the Light to one dark soul shall bring, 

Among the sons of men is more than King. 

"No word thou utterest, or good or ill, 
But sounds forever, — wild or soft or shrill, — 
Fast held within the vibrant air's embrace. 
If words of thine shall brighten one sad face, 
Thine accents ease a brother's heavy load, 
Thy daily task reveal where Truth is strowed, 
Then rest content ! for there shall come a year 
(And soon shall come) when back into thine ear 
With ten-fold power thy words, or ill or good, 
Shall speed with force that may not be withstood. 
Then happy thou, if in thine ear shall ring 
Words that shall crown thee servant,- -helper, — 
kins: ! " 



234 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

The master smiled — his face with peace was lit 

Where lately pain had overshadowed it. 

"But, sympathy!" he cried. "Sweet spirit, stay! 

Fain would I have some token by the way. 

Daily I toil, nor meet a single smile 

To ease the burden of one lonely mile ! " 

"Awake!" the angel answered, — "thou art blind." 

He raised his head. "Please, sir, we stayed 

behind, — 
You fell asleep, — you would not wake for us!" 
(Two little-ones beside his knee spoke thus.) 
"You love us, and try hard, — we know you do j 
And we have brought this little flower for you ! " 



*£••:••§* 



► 4 H 



Wentworth Brooks Kobbins. 235 



WENTWORTH BROOKS ROBBINS. 



IN ME MORI AM. 



With hearts enchained, and grateful, keen de- 
light, 

We gazed into the mid-September sky; — 
A new star, then un-named, intense and bright, 

Rising, had met our eye ! 

Nightly we watched the fair, ascending orb, 
More beautiful, more luminous each hour. 

Never did other sun our souls absorb 
With more supernal power. 

Six fleeting months it gleamed — until its rise 
Was looked for, and we grew to love its 
beams. 

And then, — as suddenly as the swift lightning flies, 
As break the mountain streams, — 



-►<* 



236 Holiday fdlesse, Etc. 

There loomed a cloud above the horizon's bar, 
Which, while we groaning gazed into the Night, 

Enshrouded all the scene, and hid the star 
Forever from our sight. 

And hid the star ! — yea, hid ! — but quenched it 
not! 

Beyond our sharpest doubt, beyond our fear, 
The star, with radiance transcending thought, 

Shall sometime reappear. 

And even now, though hidden from our sight, 
Behind the clouds it in full beauty glows, 

Gleaming with fadeless, more refulgent light 
Than when it first arose. 



11. 



Upon the surface only, wild with glee, 

The white waves dance with all the winds that 
blow : 

They only learn the secrets of the sea 
Who fathom far below. 



Wentworth Brooks Robbins. 237 

To those who knew him least, he might have 
seemed — 

That comrade whom with many tears we mourn — 
Like one who lived for sport; who never dreamed 

He for aught else was born. 

Ye never knew him as ye should have known, 
Ye who would judge him with a judgment 
thus! 

A tenderer heart throbbed never, than his own, 
Nor more magnanimous. 

And not in vain he lived, though brief his day: 
His blithesome heart oft stole away our care ; 

Long in our lives his influence will stay, 
Blessing: us unaware. 



in. 



The April morning wore a cloudy vail; 

Across the mountain-tops gray vapors passed ; 
Weeping for him who prostrate lay and pale 

The sleet and rain fell fast. 



►H" 



238 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

But with the noon the sky no longer grieved; 

The sun-lit earth grew luminous and bright. 
Even the up-heaved sod — for him up-heaved — 

Grew golden in the light. 

With slow sad steps we bore him to the grave 
While on his pall the flowers and smilax lay, — 

And wept we that a soul like his should have 
No longer life than they. 

But beautiful it was, if he must die, 

To reach his rest in such a time and scene, — 
Mourned by such tender love, and brought to lie 

Beneath such sky serene. 

And there we left him — where he oft had roved 
To greet at morn each mountain's purple 
dome; — 

In constant sight of the dear hills he loved, 
His happy summer home.* 

— Tu/to?iian. 
* See Note at end of volume. 



►H- 



u Jf I we?-e a Stream on a Mountain." 239 



"IF I WERE A STREAM ON A 
MOUNTAIN." 

[what grandfather said to the boys.] 

If I were a stream on a mountain, I'd be 

The merriest stream in the whole wide world. 
I would laugh through the wood, and would run 

o'er the lea, 
And would haste to the far-off, billowy sea, — 
To the white-sailed ships with their wings 

unfurled ; 
And there, though my waves into foam were 

hurled, 
I would still be the merriest stream in the 
world. 

If I were a rainbow, I'd strive to be 

The fairest one ever wide-hung in the sky. 
If tempest and clouds should roll over me, 
With my own glad, radiant beauty, in glee, 

To invest them with color and glory I'd try; — 



■>* 



240 Holiday Idles se, Etc. 

And if 'neath their gloom I must die, I would 

die! 
But still as the rosiest bow in the sky. 

If I were a juniper-tree, I would be 

The greenest and shadiest tree in the earth. 
Expanding my cone-covered foliage free, 
I would laugh in delight and make jubilee 

At the odors balsamic to which I gave birth; — 
And if I must fade in the Fall and the dearth, 
I would fade as the juniper greenest on earth. 

If I were a boy again, I would be 

The merriest, happiest boy in the land. 

The sun would shine warm, flowers bloom for 
me, — 

And I, with an answering beauty and glee, 
Would lend to the helpless a helping hand, — 
On the hill-top of Service would take my stand, 
The most sympathetic boy in the land. 



► « JL, 



Death of ?ny Friend. 241 



DEATH OF MY FRIEND. 

What ! is that good Year dying ? — 
The Year that has done so much for me ? 
That so often has had a kind touch for me ? 

Out in the cold there, dying? — 
Poor Year ! what a sorrowful end for thee ! 
Thou that hast been such a friend to me ! 

And is never a mourner wailing? — 
Is the whole wide hemisphere rollicking? 
The world with a foundling frolicking? 

Old Year, there surely is wailing ! — 
My heart in deep sympathy bleeds for thee ! 
My tongue this sad requiem reads for thee ! 

December 31, 1S78. 

16 



242 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



" I FAIN WOULD BOW BEFORE 
THE LORD." 



[Thoughts of an unwilling doubter, on reading the dispatches 
announcing the scenes of horror at the late destruction of 
towns by earthquakes in Central America.] 



I fain would bow before the Lord — 
I grasp him not — he reigns afar; 
He hides within the mountain scar ; 

The lightning is his gleaming sword. 

I fain would take his hand in mine — 
He glows amid the stars of Night. 
I see his wisdom and his might — 

He needeth Love to be divine ! 

I find him in the trees and rocks; 

The Universe proclaims a God. 

But is it tenderness — the rod 
That calls to life the earthquake's shocks? 






►J* — > 

" 1 fain would Bow before the Lord." 243 

At morn a man to worship goes : 

The preacher tells him "God is Good." 
At noon a populous neighborhood 

Is swallowed in earth's central throes. 

And what of all the shame, the wrong, 

The want, the crime that stalks abroad ! . . . 
Still rant ye of the love of God? — 

Then groaning cry I, "Lord, how long!" 

What care hath He for mortal men ! 

We are but beetles in his sight. 

We mouth about the wrong, the right — 
He laughs ! We fade to earth again. 

O Love Divine ! enlarge my Faith ! 

Confusions, these, of finite thought ! 

Aid me to judge thee as I ought, 
Nor longer hug this mocking wraith. 



*K4> 



x 



244 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 



WORDS AND DEEDS. 

Words ! ah, words ! 'Tis easy writing 
Of the ardor men should feel : 

But 'tis harder, Paris, smiting 
Armed Achilles in the heel. 



THE SORROWING WIND. 

I sat awaiting one who did not come. 
Against my window the October rain 
Pattered a weird and pitiful refrain — 

Never dear Mother Nature's voice is dumb. 
Drearily, as in penitence, the wind 
Murmured a Miserere — had it sinned? 

Had it been boisterous upon the deep ? 
Had it been cruel — tossing ships about, 

And sending sailors to their watery sleep ? — 
With aimless fury and disastrous rout 

Had it been leveling dim forest aisles, 

And devastating fields for miles and miles? 



►H- 



Drifting. 245 



DRIFTING. 

I am drifting, I am drifting 
On a shifting, shifting sea ; 
And above me clouds are lifting — purple, rosy 
clouds are lifting 
Wide their aegis over me : 
And between each shattered rifting, 
And between each floss and fold, 
Downward on my passage Phoebus — radiant Phoe- 
bus — glistens, sifting 
Iris hues and gold. 

Stately islands, stately islands 
Rise beside me and before ; 
And amid their vernal highlands — from amid their 
shadowy highlands 
Voices lure me to the shore : 
For as in the swampy Nile-lands 
Ghosts of priests of Isis dance, 
So amid these vernal islands — here amid these 
shadowy highlands 
Fairy Ariels prance. 



* 



246 Holiday Idlesse, Etc. 

They are calling, they are calling 
To the silvery, sandy beach ! 
Where delicious fruits are falling — ripened from 
the trees are falling — 
Pear, pomegranate, peach ! 
Fruits of Eden, never palling 
On the taste or to the eyes ; 
Purple grapes and figs, forestalling — in their lus- 
cious tints forestalling 
Dreams of Paradise ! 

I am weary — I am weary 
Of the tugging of the oar ! 
And behind me, dull and dreary — wide and wild, 
and dull and dreary, 
Swells the swelling ocean floor. 
And I gladly, oh, I gladly 

Turn my shallop to the shore, 
Where the murmuring waves shall madly — where 
the mocking waves shall madly 
Beat and buffet me no more. 

We are drifting, we are drifting 
On the shifting sea of life : 



+F 



Drifting. 247 

And above us clouds are lifting — dark and om- 
inous clouds are lifting, 
Dim with turmoil and with strife. 
Dim with turmoil — bright with blessing ! 
Storm and sunshine intermixed ! 
Ever, through earth's doubts distressing, heaven's 
persuasive lights are pressing, 
On the headland ages fixed ! 

There are voices, calling, calling ; 
And they beckon us away ; 
And amid the dim, appalling, fear-inspiring dark- 
ness falling, 

We can seem to see the Day ! 

O ye Voices ! heavenly Voices, 

Speaking to me, — saying "Write ! " 
May the message that rejoices far outweigh all 
other choices ! 
Bid my pen be dipt in light ! 



*!••:••§> 



1 



►H- 



248 Holiday fdlesse, Etc. 



EARLY FRAGMENT. 



1870. 



Not greatly distant from the sounding sea 
Beside whose edge I frequent wend my way, 
An ancient forest, deep and silent, lies, — 
Reputed home of nymph and woodland fay. 
Verdant primeval arches rise o'erhead, 
And hide the earth from sunlight and the sky ; 
And drooping mosses hang from every limb- — 
Gauze-curtains, swaying in the East-wind's sigh. 

The hemlock and the pine are brothers here ; 
Their branches they in mutual friendship wield ; 
And when the winter blasts and snows appear, 
Each strives the other from the storms to shield. 
Oh, would that men might here a lesson learn, 
And all, as one, their strength and faith compare : 
That when were nigh the fitful storms of life, 
The strong the burdens of the weak might bear. 



*■ 



Epilogue — Finished. 249 



EPILOGUE— "FINISHED.' 

The year is finished — finished is the book. 
The year was full of days, for good or ill: 
With us it lay the fleeting hours to fill 
With noble deeds. Long hours in dale and 
nook, 
Where haunted pines their odorous needles shook, 
Where fern and flower their dewy fragrance 

spill, 
It gave for our delight. 'Tis dying ! Still, 
New years remain! With fervor let us look 
To make them really ours. — And thou, my page ! 
As years with days, so thou with words art 

full! 
Oh, happy I, if on thy friendly way 
Some thought of cheer thou give, to youth or 
age, 
Some life encrimsoned make as white as wool, 
Some sorrowing heart allure to dream of day! 

December, 1S80. 



-H« 



I 



Holiday Jdlesse, Etc. 



LINES. 

THE POET'S AFTERTHOUGHT. 

The clay my fingers yearned to mould, 

And modeled as they slowly could, 
I find becoming hard and cold — 

Retaining with the strength of wood 
The vines artistically scrolled, 
The sculptured ferns and marigold — 
And having, it is understood, 
Of permanence a likelihood. 
It may be that another year 
Will prove the Age of Marble near. 



-►H 



►H- 



NOTES. 

Dedication. 

These lines, together with the Proem to the present volume, were writ- 
ten in 1875, when the author meditated printing a small volume of his 
earlier verses — a project which was abandoned. 

Page 72. The Bells of Como. 

Pondering some verses appropriate to the Anniversary of the Society for 
which this narrative was written, the legend here presented was recalled 
and made use of. The barest suggestion only, of the story, was possessed 
by me, and the entire history of Michael, including the itinerary of his 
wanderings as here given, is my own. Since the poem was first printed 
(soon after its delivery), I have learned that the story has before met ver- 
sification ; but, on account of the inherent beauty and poetic possibilities 
of the legend, this fact was anticipated by me. I would be glad to meet 
with the other verses. 

Page 123. Kalhgo (pronounced with the accent on the first syllable). 

The appended Note was prefixed to this poem on its original publication 
in 188 1 — 

The greater part of the following poem was written a number of years 
ago. Since *hat time — owing to other engagements, mercantile and lit- 
erary, on the part of the writer — it has remained unfinished. Friends who 
saw the earlier sheets, and who at frequent intervals have evinced a desire 
for the story in full, have now urged to its completion. 

The early date of the composition (when the writer was not twenty years 
old) will perhaps explain, though it will not excuse, any possible imperfec- 
tions in the design of the poem and the mechanism of the verses. 

A word of comment concerning the facts presented : That he has not 
overdrawn, in his verses, the social and spiritual needs of a large class of 
people occupying the southern coastline States of this country, — Florida 
not only, but the States along the entire Mexican gulf to the extremity 
of Louisiana, — the writer is confident all observing travelers will admit. 
Scattered as these people are through vast territories of swamp and forest ; 
living oftentimes for years in solitude ; visited by the outside world only by 
accident, or through the promptings to adventure and travel which urge 
tourists to their marvelous landscapes ; uneducated, uninformed, destitute 
entirely of refining influences, — it cannot be that in the simple, innocent. 



->< 



NOTES. 

unpolished prayer of the Cracker the writer has overdrawn facts, or that 
in any part of the story which he has weaved to accompany his scenic de- 
scriptions, he has exceeded the license of fiction — except, it may be, as 
Truth itself is said often to exceed the daring of the imagination. 

If what he has written shall perhaps at any time inspire to personal or 
missionary endeavor in behalf of the numbers of whom he has spoken, he 
will not have written in vain. And if the descriptions contained in the 
poem shall warm the hearts of his untraveled readers to a conception of 
the marvels of Floridan landscapes, as the writer's study in preparing for 
his task, and his frequent scenic plagiarism in carrying out the same, have 
warmed his own, he will be a second time gratified. 

And so he leaves the poem with his friends, and bids them " Merry 
Christmas." 

College Hill, Christmas, 1881. 

Page 154. " These perfect days •were never vie ant 
For toil of hand or brain." 

For these two lines, which have long sounded in my memory, I am in- 
debted to a very pleasing mid-summer poem, entitled "Lotus Eating," 
met by me some years ago in the columns of the local press. 

Page 155. " The world is too much with us." 
See Wordsworth's famous Sonnet, thus beginning. 

Page 235. Weniworth Brooks Robbins. 

Mr. Robbins, a student at Tufts College, was a young man of unusual 
social qualities, and endeared to all who knew him. He died at the early 
age of nineteen. Educated in boyhood in New York City, he partook of 
the bustle and excitement incident to society in the metropolis; but spend- 
ing for many years his Summers in Keene, N. H., his nature was rounded 
and intensified by the beauty of the sky and the mountains : and although 
he did not manifest it openly, nor often even to those who entered deepest 
into his life, his spirit was calmed and glorified by a love for Nature and a 
belief in the Eternal wisdom and goodness. By the hands of his college 
friends, who had loved him in life, and who in death followed him with 
tears, he was laid to rest in a beautiful spot shut in by his own New 
Hampshire hills. 



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